Goodbye to Berlin Quotes

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“But seriously, I believe I'm a sort of Ideal Woman, if you know what I mean. I'm the sort of woman who can take men away from their wives, but I could never keep anybody for long. And that's because I'm the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets me; and then he finds he doesn't really, after all.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“...I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“She is merely acclimatizing herself, in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes its coat for the winter. Thousands of people like Frl. Schroeder are acclimatizing themselves. After all, whatever government is in power, they are doomed to live in this town.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they're capable of anything. That's just why they're so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment...”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“It is strange how people seem to belong to places - especially to places where they were not born...”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I could never keep anybody for long. And that's because I'm the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets me; and then he finds he doesn't really, after all.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I thought of Natalia: she has escaped – none too soon, perhaps. However often the decision may be delayed, all these people are ultimately doomed. This evening is the dress-rehearsal of a disaster. It is like the last night of an epoch.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“All women like men to be strong and decided and following out their careers. A woman wants to be motherly to a man and protect his weak side, but he must have a strong side too, which she can respect ... If you ever care for a woman, I don't advise you to let her see that you've got no ambition. Otherwise she'll get to despise you.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“The really destructive feature of their relationship is its inherent quality of boredom. It is quite natural for Peter often to feel bored with Otto - they have scarecely a single interest in common - but Peter, for sentimental reasons, will never admit that this is so. When Otto, who has no such motives for pretending, says, "It's so dull here!" I invariably see Peter wince and looked pained. Yet Otto is actually far less often bored than Peter himself; he finds Peter's company genuinely amusing, and is quite glad to be with him most of the day. Often, when Otto has been chattering rubbish for an hour without stopping, I can see that Peter really longs for him to be quiet and go away. But to admit this would be, in Peter's eyes, a total defeat, so he only laughs and rubs his hands, tacitly appealing to me to support him in his pretense of finding Otto inexhaustibly delightful and funny.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“Sometimes I wake up in the night when it’s cold and wish he was there. You never seem to get really warm, sleeping alone.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“No. Even now I can't altogether believe that any of this really happened...”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“A month after this, another postcard arrived from Rome, giving no address: 'Am writing in a day or two,' it said. That was six years ago.
So now I am writing to her.
When you read this, Sally - if you ever do - please accept it as a tribute, the sincerest I can pay, to yourself and to our friendship.
And send me another postcard.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“Everything in the room is like that: unnecessarily solid, abnormally heavy and dangerously sharp.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I think', said Sally, 'it must be marvellous to be a novelist. You're frightfully dreamy and unpractical and unbusinesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you as much as they want - and then you sit down and write a book about them which fairly shows them what swine they all are, and it's the most terrific success and you make pots of money.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“You, Christopher, with your centuries of Anglo-Saxon freedom behind you, with your Magna Carta engraved upon your heart, cannot understand that we poor barbarians need the stiffness of a uniform to keep us standing upright.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“İkimiz de güldük. "Sally" dedim, "senin sevdiğim yanın ne biliyor musun? Bu kadar kolayca kandırılabilmen. Hiç kandırılamayan insanlar öylesine can sıkıcı ve ruhsuz oluyorlar ki!"
"Beni hâlâ seviyor musun, Chris, sevgilim?"
"Evet, Sally. Seni hâlâ seviyorum."

Onu bir daha görmedim. Yaklaşık iki hafta sonra, tam onu aramam gerektiğini düşündüğüm bir sırada, Paris'ten bir kart aldım: "Buraya dün gece geldim. Yarın doğru dürüst yazarım. Kucak dolusu sevgiler." Arkadan mektup gelmedi. Bundan bir ay sonra Roma'dan bir kart daha aldım. Adres yoktu: "Bir iki güne kadar yazarım." diyordu. Bu altı yıl önceydi.
Şimdi ben ona yazıyorum.
Sally, bunu okuduğun zaman -eğer bir gün okuyacak olursan- lütfen bunu bir takdirname- sana verebileceğim en yürekten takdirname olarak kabul et...”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I am a camera with its shutter open [...]. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“The political moral is certainly depressing; these people could be made to believe in anybody or anything.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I am a quite unnecessarily complicated piece of mechanism”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“I like hearing the sound of your voice, but I don’t care a bit what you’re saying.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“Berlin is a skeleton which aches in the cold: it is my own skeleton aching”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (1975) Hardcover

“Wassertorstrasse one week was much like another. Our leaky stuffy little attic smelt of cooking and bad drains. When the living-room stove was alight, we could hardly breathe; when”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

“Сегодня утром я шел по Бюловштрассе. Фашисты громили дом мелкого либерального издателя-пацифиста. Подогнали грузовик и нагрузили его доверху книгами. Водитель насмешливо зачитывал толпе их названия.

– «Nie Wieder Krieg!»[24]– выкрикивал он, поднимая одну из них за уголок обложки с таким отвращением, будто в руках у него омерзительная рептилия. Раздался взрыв хохота.

– Нет – войне! – отозвалась толстая, хорошо одетая женщина с издевательским смешком. – Надо же!”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“Элегантная и непритязательная столовая была отделана в стиле барокко.”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“Салли засмеялась.

– Сегодня я специально не покрасила ногти на ногах.

– Черт возьми, Салли! Неужели ты их красишь?

– Да, конечно.

– Но зачем, скажи на милость? Я имею в виду, никто… – Я поправил себя. – Ведь мало кто может оценить их.

Салли улыбалась одной из своих обезоруживающих улыбок.

– Я знаю, дорогой. Но я себя ощущаю суперчувственной.”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“– Пожалуйста, расскажите мне, – попросил он перед моим уходом, – если я не слишком дерзок, – что вас заставило переехать в Берлин?

– Желание выучить немецкий, – сказал я.

После предупреждения Натальи я не собирался поверять Бернгарду историю своей жизни.

– И вы счастливы здесь?

– Очень счастлив.

– Что ж, замечательно. Совершенно замечательно. – Бернгард засмеялся своим мягким ироничным смехом. – Человек столь сильного духа, что может быть счастлив даже в Берлине. Вы должны открыть мне свой секрет. Разрешите мне поучиться у вас мудрости?”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“Фрау Новак поглядела ему вслед и вздохнула:

– Наверное, опять собрался к своим нацистам. Мне часто кажется, лучше б он не связывался с ними. Они задурили ему голову своими идиотскими идеями. А он от этого такой беспокойный стал. С тех пор как примкнул к ним, совсем переменился. Я в политике не разбираюсь. И всегда говорю: почему нам нельзя вернуть кайзера? Хорошие при нем были времена, что бы ни говорили.

– Да к чертям собачьим вашего старого кайзера, – сказал Отто. – Нам нужна коммунистическая революция.

– Коммунистическая революция! – фыркнула фрау Новак. – Надо же! Коммунисты – никчемные люди, такие же лентяи, как ты, они в жизни ни одного дня честно не работали.”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“– Извините, – встревает один из ребят, – это абсолютно неверно. Фюрер не хочет войны. Мы за честный мир. Хотя… – добавляет он мечтательно, и лицо его сияет от радости, – и война может быть замечательной. Вспомните древних греков.

– Древние греки, – возражаю я, – не использовали отравляющих газов.

Ребята презрительно выслушивают мой аргумент. Один из них торжественно возражает:

– Это только вопрос техники.”
― Кристофер Ишервуд, Goodbye to Berlin

“They all thronged round us for a moment in the little circle of light from the panting bus, their lit faces ghastly like ghosts against the black stems of the pines. This was the climax of my dream: the instant of nightmare in which it would end. I had an absurd pang of fear that they were going to attack us – a gang of terrifying soft muffled shapes – clawing us from our seats, dragging us hungrily down, in dead silence. But the moment passed. They drew back – harmless, after all, as mere ghosts – into the darkness, while our bus, with a great churning of its wheels, lurched forward towards the city, through the deep unseen snow.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin