I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the observer simply records experiences without actively interpreting them.
Christopher Isherwood uses the metaphor of a camera to illustrate the role of a passive observer in life. The 'camera' represents a mind open to experiences, capturing moments without emotional involvement or personal judgment, highlighting a perspective of detachment that can lead to authenticity in recording reality.
In practice
During a photography workshop, you might use this quote to inspire participants to observe their surroundings without bias.
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
A minority is only thought of as a minority when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority, real or imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary.
What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people —well, like you were saying about minorities, this morning. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?
I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.
The paternalist is a sentimentalist at heart, and the sentimentalist is always potentially cruel.
I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.
We need to take music out of the ivory tower - both for musicians and for the public. Otherwise, classical music will not survive the 21st century.
That which is creative must create itself.
I've been writing my entire life, and I'll always write.
Theater is my temple and my religion and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe together.
For me, writing time has always been precious, something I wait for and am eager for and make the best use of. That's probably why I get up so early and have writing time in the quiet dawn hours, when no one needs me.
The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.