quotations about dreams & dreaming
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Eleonora"
The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
MUHAMMAD ALI
Esquire, Feb. 2012
I'll never waste my dreams by falling asleep. Never again.
EUGÈNE IONESCO
Man With Bags
In dreams no man wears a mask.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
The Higher Pantheism
Dreams only change their houses.
They cannot be lined up against a wall
And quietly buried under ground,
And no more heard of ...
However deep the pit and heaped the clay--
Like seedlings of old time
Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world--
Dreams will to light.
LOLA RIDGE
"Dreams"
No man lives long when his dreams are dead.
GENE WOLFE
The Claw of the Conciliator
For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
White Nights
I dream, therefore I exist.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
A Madman's Defense
If you're smart, then your dreams evolve, too.
MARIO BATALI
Esquire, Jun. 2004
Cinderella believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn't come along, she went over to the palace and got him.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, Not Another Dating Book
Dream life, I realized, was only confusing when you were awake. It was from the perspective of waking life that dream life seemed fractured and lacking consequence, lacking any certainty that one thing led to another. But from within dream life, the world was generally coherent. Not exactly an unconfusing world--just no more confusing than any other.
ALEX GARLAND
The Coma
There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.
GLEN COOK
The White Rose
Dreams may be impossible, yet still be dreamed.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Earth
I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Letters: 1892-1910
It feels in dreams
That everything is there for you
The city breathes and pulses
It's for you electron blue
R.E.M.
"Sing for the Submarine"
I love to dream, but I never try to dream and think at the same time.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Woodburn Harris, February/March 1929
When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments.
GERALD G. MAY
The Awakened Heart
Hear in a realm of wordless dreams--
That inner life which knows and thinks;
My thirsty spirit comes and drinks
The petal dew of golden streams;
Where death is less than what it seems,
And life is subtler than the Sphinx.
HENRY ABBEY
"May Dreams"
No human being can achieve all he or she desires in this life except in dreams, so good night all.
JOSé SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda