Liberation Quotes

“John Gielgud told us this story about Mae West. She was asked, ‘Do you ever smoke after you’ve had sex?’ She answered, ‘I never looked.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Liberation: Diaries, Vol. 3: 1970-1983

“The Gita says, “Never give way to laziness,”72 but the Gita is speaking of the constant effort one should make to realize the meaning of life, the Eternal within. This effort can go on throughout periods of inaction. Inaction is not the same thing as laziness. And certainly the effort can go on throughout periods of unhappiness. Indeed, unhappiness is possibly less stultifying than happiness, provided it isn’t too intense.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Liberation: Diaries 1970–1983

“I have kept this diary doggedly, day by day, because I believe a continuous record, no matter how full of trivialities, will always gradually reveal something of the subconscious mind behind it. I’ve never regretted keeping a diary yet. There are always a few nuggets of literary value under all that sand.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Liberation: Diaries, Vol. 3: 1970-1983

“The usual pronouncement that Truman Capote is a ‘birdbrain.’ Gore [Vidal] has finished a novel called Two Sisters in which he admits that he and Jack Kerouac went to bed together—or was that in an article? (Gore told me about so many articles he’s written and talks he has given that my memory spins.) Anyhow, Gore now regrets that he didn’t describe the act itself; how they got very drunk and Kerouac said, ‘Why don’t we take a shower?’ and then tried to go down on him but did it very badly, and then they belly rubbed. Next day, Kerouac claimed he remembered nothing; but later, in a bar, yelled out, ‘I’ve blown Gore Vidal!”
― Christopher Isherwood, Liberation: Diaries, Vol. 3: 1970-1983