Reality Quotes

“...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.”
― Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati

“Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.”
― B. W. Powe, Towards a Canada of Light

“We used to do coke, till "Just Say No" put the stuff out of reach. Now it's crank. Meth. The monster. It's a bitch on the body, but damn do you fly.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Crank

“He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.”
― Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination

“Romance is the deepest thing in life. It is deeper than reality.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more.”
― Michel Houellebecq, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

“When fiction has become reality, life may turn into a fairy tale or a firestorm. Tina, time has come to pull up one’s socks and start relearning and reassessing living. ("Another empty room")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“If we dare to dream, we must dare to wake up. When we come to rub our eyes wide open and face up to realness, we can clear our vision and curb a whirlwind of bewilderment that might break our mind apart, once fantasy wrangles with reality and our awareness denies the true colors of facts. ("Behind the frosted glass”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Life is tough, then you die.”
― George Carlin

“So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.”
― Lucretius

“J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence.”
― Anatole France

“And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“When the past gets its teeth into our daily life, it may get to grips with an astringent reality and adjust our timeline. By recognizing ourselves in the light of our history, we become aware of what we are. ("Going back to yesterday")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“When people are just drifting along the tides of life and can’t see the shores of reality anymore, they may experience someday the irresistible desire for a liberating burst, emerging deeply from the inner self and disentangling them from their manufactured pattern. That day might be a day of all possibilities and make them ready to hit the ground running. ("A change of vision" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“If nothing lasted and the world did not exist, all that meant was that reality was not fixed. The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable, and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“It would be perfect if everyone who makes love, is in love, but this is simply an unrealistic expectation. I'd say 75 percent of the population of people who make love, are not in love, this is simply the reality of the human race, and to be idealistic about this is to wait for the stars to aline and Jupiter to change color; for the Heavens to etch your names together in the sky before you make love to someone. But idealism is immaturity, and as a matter of fact, the stars may never aline, Jupiter may never change color, and the Heavens may never ever etch your names together in the sky for you to have the never-ending permission to make endless love to one another. And so the bottom line is, there really is no difference between doing something today, and doing something tomorrow, because today is what you have, and tomorrow may not turn out the way you expect it to. At the end of the day, sex is an animalistic, humanistic, passionate desire.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“If we don’t live in the same vibe, it is hard to be aware of each other. When our reading differs from our neighbors’ reality, our surroundings may take a range of discordant shades and daily episodes become unrecognizable. But if we endeavor to find out, the “who is who”, the “what is what” and the “where is Waldo”, we might demonstrate our social literacy and connectedness. ("Fish for silence.")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Lies 1: There is only the present and nothing to remember.

Lies 2: Time is a straight line.

Lies 3: The difference between the past and the future is that one has happened while the other has not.

Lies 4: We can only be in one place at a time.

Lies 5: Any proposition that contains the word 'finite' (the world, the universe, experience, ourselves...)

Lies 6: Reality as something which can be agreed upon.

Lies 7: Reality is truth.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry

“when you're a kid, they tell you that it's what's on the inside that counts. Looks don't matter . But that's not true. Guys like Phoebus in The Hunchback, or Dorian, or the old Kyle Kingsbury-- they can be scumbags to women and still get away with it because they're good-looking. Being ugly is a kind of prisoner.”
― Alex Flinn, Beastly

“Words don’t have the power to hurt you, unless that person meant more to you than you are willing to confess.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“It is not a shame to be rocked on the waves of our dreams sometime, and roam around in our memories, stirring new emotions. Memories can be a balm for demolished expectations or disfigured reality.( "Knowing someone is waiting for us" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Let them not be denied a few crumbs of attention or merely a 'twinkle of happiness' if, through the insidious intrusion of reality, the unattended cannot receive a 'lease of happiness.' ("Homeless, down in the corner" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Illusion is Reality's coy lover who cheers him when he is grim. Illusion is cunning to his wisdom of ages, weet oblivion to his knowledge. A bounty to his lack. [Sabine]”
― Kresley Cole, Kiss of a Demon King

“You get what you give. What you put into things is what you get out of them.”
― Jennifer Lopez

“It was cold out here in this world beyond childhood.”
― Leslie W.P. Garland, The Bat (The Red Grouse Tales) - A coming of age story involving a search after truth, doubt and a bat!