Quotes from book
A Single Man

Name: A Single Man
Author: Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood

A Single Man is a 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood.

“You see, Kenny, there are some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in a body - even this old beat-up carcass - that still has warm blood and live semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh!”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“George smiles to himself, with entire self-satisfaction. Yes, I am crazy, he thinks. That is my secret; my strength.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“What it sees there isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“The past is just something that's over.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“Someone has to ask you a question," George continues meaningly, "before you can answer it. But it's so seldom you find anyone who'll ask the right questions. Most people aren't that much interested….”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“Let's face it, minorities are people who probably look and act and think differently from us and have faults we don't have. We may dislike the way they look and act, and we may hate their faults. And it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear over our feelings with pseudo-liberal sentimentality. If we’re frank about our feelings, we have a safety valve; and if we have a safety-valve, we’re actually less likely to start persecuting.... I know that theory is unfashionable nowadays. We all keep trying to believe that, if we ignore something long enough, it’ll just vanish––
‘Where was I? Oh yes... Well, now, suppose this minority does get persecuted – never mind why – political, economic, psychological reasons – there always is a reason, no matter how wrong it is – that’s my point. And, of course, persecution itself is always wrong; I’m sure we all agree there. But, the worst of it is, we now run into another liberal heresy. Because the persecuting majority is vile, says the liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can’t you see what nonsense that is? What’s to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?’
‘And I’ll tell you something else. A minority has its own kind of aggression. It absolutely dares the majority to attack it. It hates the majority — not without a cause, I grant you. It even hates the other minorities – because all minorities are in competition: each one proclaims that its sufferings are the worst and its wrongs are the blackest. And the more they all hate, and the more they're all persecuted, the nastier they become! Do you think it makes people nasty to be loved? You know it doesn’t! Then why should it make them nice to be loathed?”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

pps. 53-54
A Single Man (1964)

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