Christine Jorgensen > Quotes

“How strange it seemed to me that the whole answer might lie in the particular combination of atoms contained in those tiny, aspirin-like tablets. As recently as a few years before, science had split some of those atoms and unleashed a giant force. There in my hand lay another series of atoms, which in their way might set off another explosion--one I hoped would not be a destructive force but would help to make me a whole person.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Contentment and happiness are contagious, I think.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Through the years, I've encountered about every attitude and response known to the human emotional spectrum. Some people thought me a courageous pioneer, others regarded me as disgusting and immoral; some of the clergy considered that I had committed an ungodly act. Why these reactions to me should be so explosively pro and con, only God or the Devil knows, and I suspect they are both puzzled.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The lost soul whose heart reaches out to grasp love
While his arms were forced through precedent to hang lifeless
Whose very soul cries out to a love that cannot be returned
Where can a substitute, a partial relief be found?
How can a futureless life go on? Yet, it does.
Year after year, the body lives, while the soul dies.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Almost invariably when my name was mentioned, it carried the added phrase, "an ex-GI." There seemed to be something fascinating about the fact that I'd been in the army, and I wonder now if that paradox wasn't a large contributing factor in the mountains of publicity that followed.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I have never been such a real person as I am today.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The New York Enquirer, a journalistic monstrosity that specializes in epic squalor. Incredibly, this monument to obscenity continues to appear on newsstands week after week.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I remember [Dr. Kinsey] personally as a shy, quiet man and a gracious host, but in his work he was a supreme egoist, and left me with the impression that he believed his books on sexual behavior were the definitive ones, and there was not much left to be said on the subject. Perhaps his professional conceit was warranted, for above all, he was a dedicated research scientist, and I was happy to have made even a small contribution to his studies.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The past was yesterday, and yesterday had ended last night.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“In spite of every precaution to preserve my privacy, some details of my surgery did leak out in the press...it was an extremely personal and intimate procedure in my medical history, I had no wish to share its details with the rest of the world, any more than a complete hysterectomy would be advertised by another woman.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Comedians used Christine jokes with abandon, frequently when I was present, as even my name was good for a surefire laugh. Many of the stories were very unappetizing, and almost always dealt with the more lewd and phonographic aspects of sex. Probably it's because I was the subject of the commentary, but I've never quite understood why it reached such levels of popularity, though I admit that the sources showed phenomenal imagination.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Almost everybody I met had a Christine Jorgensen "joke.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I think as I look at the foamy white clouds
How wonderful it would be to live among them
And to have their protecting films as shelter
To float along through eternity,
Never to have the stress and turmoil of the earth disrupt my life.

Always to be detached from the earth's pulling forces
Just to be alone with the elements.
The elements--the one thing human minds can't control
Always moving as they like.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I'd remained the subject of a TV boycott by the executives in the industry, though why they felt I was to be shrouded from the general public is still unclear. No doubt they felt that all sexual realities (other than exaggerated bust lines), should remain concealed, though they seem to have had no such hesitation about showing violence, murder, dope addiction, and infidelity on the home screens.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“My greatest desire was to step over the boundaries of notoriety, into the world of legitimate theater, and I hoped to make the transition on the strength of a satisfying and acceptable performance; not by a constant reference to my past personal life.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I remember times when I lived in a crucible of troubled phantoms, and faltered in the long, painful struggle for identity. But for me there was always a glimmering promise that lay ahead; with the help of God, a promise that has been fulfilled. I found the oldest gift of heaven--to be myself.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Can you realize what success for me will mean to literally thousands of people? For I am not alone in this affliction. It may mean new hope and life to so many people. I think we (the doctors and I) are fighting this the right way--make the body fit the soul, rather than vice versa. For me, it is the heart, the look in the eyes, tone of voice, and the way one thinks that makes the real person.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“It seems to me now a shocking commentary on the press of our time that I pushed the hydrogen-bomb tests on Eniwetok right off the front pages. A tragic war was still raging in Korea, George VI had died and Britain had a new queen, sophisticated guided missiles were going off in New Mexico, Jonas Salk was working on a vaccine for infantile paralysis...Christine Jorgensen was on page one.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“It was difficult for me to see the relationship between public morals and public toilets, as to me those facilities had been more a matter of convenience than of sex.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“With all the evils of publicity and its causes for distress, I also realized no matter how unwilling a subject, the opportunities that it offered ultimately could only be counted on the credit side. I knew that if the sudden notoriety had catapulted me into a lucrative career and exciting new experiences, then I must use it in my life as a force for good. I hoped in the future that I would receive no more mention than my accomplishments or abilities deserved.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Unfortunately, this type of character defamation often follows the victim doggedly, and on occasion, has done irreparable damage. If retractions are printed, which is rare in the offending newspapers, they are seldom noted by the reader. I think it can be compared adequately to taking a bag full of feathers to a high hill and throwing them into the wind--retrieving all of them would be an impossible job.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Some months later, I was told by Ben White, the Daily News reporter who had written the original scoop in December of 1952, that the Jorgensen story had lain on his desk for a week before he decided to use it. Apparently, at that time, a lurid sex scandal involving the trial of a wealthy playboy had run its course, the public was beginning to lose interest, and the Daily News was looking for another "sensation" to take its place, in order to boost its circulation. In a sense then, my notoriety was a matter of chance.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Like Janus, the press has presented two faces: one detrimental and one advantageous.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“To me, there is very little sex in toilets.”
― Christine Jorgensen

“The Post articles consistently referred to me as "he," "Jorgensen," or "the Bronx man," as though I were some anthropological missing link.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The answer to the problem must not lie in sleeping pills and suicides that look like accidents, or in jail sentences, but rather in life and the freedom to live it. Yes, in considering the possibilities of removing and transplanting, perhaps science is reaching beyond the acceptance of current medical practice, but does that justify refusing to do it? Where would the world be without the Pasteurs and Ehrlichs to reach out and do the impossible?”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“Many times, I've been accused of living a masquerade as a female, but if I have not already made it clear I will state again that, in my view, the real masquerade would have been to continue in my former state. That, to me, would have been living the lie.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I was never an absolute male and I shall never be an absolute female. But whatever the value of percentages in the scale of sex determinants, there are no absolutes; even the most masculine or feminine person approximates only eighty percent of the possible total. There is no one hundred percent Adam or Eve.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“I now admit, with something of an apology, that I made my first appearance at the Copa Club in August of 1953 with the secret opinion that I was doing something slightly disreputable. I think I expected every member of the audience to be drunk, and that all chorus girls led scarlet lives. But I soon learned that life upon the wicked stage wasn't so wicked after all. I found that most entertainers were pretty average, hardworking citizens, and many of them simply went home to a husband or wife and children. They were often civic-minded, voted in elections, observed traffic laws, helped old ladies across the street, went to church, and gave innumerable benefit performances for no pay. The public only heard about the prodigals who were in the minority, as the virtues of the others simply weren't very interesting.

Today, it makes me laugh to think that I was such a great moralist, and often branded as a questionable commodity myself, that I was so abundantly guilty of being a prude.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

“The most frustrating and difficult part of such an accusation is that the writer has a column at his disposal, and the victim has no such platform from which to retaliate. One can only sit back in anger, and let the scandalmongers play the same old insistent tune on their pornograph.”
― Christine Jorgensen, Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography