quotations about reality
There is that might-have-been which is the single rock we cling to above the maelstrom of unbearable reality.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom, Absalom!
There are some things that just have to be whether they are or not, have to be a damn sight more than some other things that are and it don't matter a damn whether they are or not.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom, Absalom!
It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
The most exciting thing for me is crossing that bridge between something we know is real and something that is extraordinary. The thing for me has always been how you cross that bridge.
J. J. ABRAMS
interview, The Fresno Bee, December 16, 2015
We live on two levels ... the realistic level and the fantastic level, and which is the real one, really?
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
By changing your mind, you change everything.
PATANJALI
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?
GEORGE BERKELEY
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
PHILIP K. DICK
Valis
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
JOHN LENNON
attributed, As Time Goes By: Living in the Sixties with John Lennon
I've never felt Truth was Beauty. Never. I've always felt that people can't take too much reality. I like being in Ingmar Bergman's world. Or in Louis Armstrong's world. Or in the world of the New York Knicks. Because it's not this world. You spend your whole life searching for a way out. You just get an overdose of reality, you know, and it's a terrible thing. I'm always fighting against reality.
WOODY ALLEN
attributed, Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles
The raw materials of reality without the glue of time are materials adrift and reality is as meaningless as the balsa parts of a model airplane scattered to the wind.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
The angel of reality is unknowable, a figure only partially apprehended, then transformed into something else in continuous movement--here and then gone.
DAVID MICHAEL HERTZ
Angels of Reality
I like reality. It tastes like bread.
JEAN ANOUILH
Plays
Reality is not a fad That changes with the latest whim.
DAVID EDWIN HALL
"Rejoicing in Reality", Quiet Time Poems
Between certainty and the real, an ancient enmity.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Against Certainty"
Better to bridge the gap between virtual reality and reality reality by marrying the two, by enhancing our environment and finding further means to access those populating it, even if through a game.
AMANDA KNOX
"Amanda's View: Reality is Better", Ballard News Tribune
Reality is frequently inaccurate.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
T. S. ELIOT
Murder in the Cathedral
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
letter to Countee Cullen, 1943
Reality, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary