If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for a world that values emotions and sentimentality.
Christopher Isherwood's quote reflects a profound belief in the importance of sentiment in human life. It suggests that a world devoid of emotional connection and genuine feelings is undesirable and lacking in humanity. By emphasizing sentiment, Isherwood champions the need for empathy, love, and connection in society, portraying them as essential elements for a fulfilling existence.
In practice
In a speech advocating for emotional intelligence in education, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of feelings.
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.
Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all that time to read'?
You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.
In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions.
Class is something that I think seriously about and try to organise my politics around. I think there are lots of novels that don't really engage with questions of class at all, and they get less conversation about issues of social privilege than I do. But it's better to try and talk about it and maybe fail.
It (Tao) is eternally without desire. So, it can be called small. All things return to it, although it does not make itself their ruler. So, it can be called great.
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.
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