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? While you’re being persecuted, you hate what’s happening to you, you hate the people who are making it happen; you’re in a world of hate. Why, you wouldn’t recognize love if you met it! You’d suspect love! You’d think there was something behind it—some motive—some trick.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes how persecution can distort one’s perception of love and kindness.
Christopher Isherwood's quote explores the detrimental effects of negative experiences on human emotions and relationships. It suggests that when individuals are subjected to hate or persecution, they develop a deep mistrust towards love, viewing it as potentially insincere or manipulative. This perspective raises questions about the nature of love and hate, indicating that the absence of kindness can lead to a vicious cycle where people fail to recognize genuine affection amidst their suffering.
In practice
During a workshop on emotional resilience, this quote can illustrate how negative experiences affect our relationships.
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.
Koreans are worried about the Japanese right-wing people, who tend to be against foreigners. But the Koreans in Japan aren't even foreigners. They are essentially culturally Japanese. If a family has lived in Japan for three generations, it's absurd to see them as foreigners.
Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I'm very grateful for the support and kindness that we've gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband's policies or what have you, they care about children and that's been good to see.
And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.
Her grief grieved her. His devastated her.
Men are allowed to have passion and commitment for their work... a woman is allowed that feeling for a man, but not her work.
It was strange how your brain could know what your heart refused to accept.
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