Quotes About Reality

Tim O'Brien's book about Vietnam, 'The Things They Carried', has won every award, is studied in college and is considered to be definitive. But it's fiction.

After I won in Beijing I chatted with a lot of Indian athletes and they were interested and keen to know what I did. They all thought that I had some sort of secret for success, but I just wanted them to understand and realize that the biggest secret is: there is no secret.

Most 'reality' shows aren't reality at all. They're game shows with no prize. Like 'Rock of Love.' His aren't genuine feelings. Then again, Bob Barker didn't really care whether or not you won the toaster. Sorry to shatter everyone's dreams.

I caught malaria, and the medicines caused a hallucination. I dreamt I won an Oscar for acting. I know it sounds stupid, but it was so real, and I just knew then it would happen.

Initially when I got called up, I thought it would change my life. And it didn't. Then when I won the Most Valuable Player, I thought I'd be a Beatle and I'd be overwhelmed and not be able to leave my hotel room. I don't say that with arrogance, I say it with unknown.

We can't all win Olympic medals. Even I never won one.

I thought that when I won the Olympic trials I was going to be the happiest person in the whole world. And I was happy. But it wasn't like I thought it was going to be. I had already imagined it in my head so many times. It was real before it happened.

I prefer career artists that have spent time honing their craft, as opposed to, 'I won a karaoke contest on a reality show and now I have a record.' That's such a drag. The music that comes out of it is so poor.

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

Sometimes I wake at night in the White House and rub my eyes and wonder if it is not all a dream.

I sometimes wonder if two thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet.

Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.

I feel like I've dreamed half of my life that hasn't happened yet, so a lot of times I'm going along, and I do stuff, and I know that I've done it. I have deja vus more than I have regular experiences. If half of your day is a deja vu, then you start to wonder, 'What is real and what isn't?'

The CGI landscape is another world. It has its own physical laws; it can defy gravity. But surely the wonder of cinematic space is that it is wedded to reality?

I had grand visions of being in professional sports. But when reality set in, I went, 'Oh, OK. I'll just move to Hollywood and be an actor.' I didn't want to look back on my life and wonder, 'What if I had done this? Or I had done that?'

Wonder is that possession of the mind that enchants the emotions while never surrendering reason. It is a grasp on reality that does not need constant high points in order to be maintained, nor is it made vulnerable by the low points of life's struggle.

I remember leaving the first 'Matrix' movie feeling completely radicalized, completely changed. I think we all, from our ordinary lives, like to think about putting ourselves into these extraordinary situations and wonder how we'd respond.

I've had a lot of glamour come my way in the last 10 years - you know, movie stars and mansions and red carpets and trips to Europe and crazy stuff I never would have imagined - and I look at them as if I'm the bartender in the corner of the room. They've never gone into my psyche. I look at them with distance, and wonder.

I used to wonder what it would be like to see my name on a billboard. I couldn't even imagine something like that. Then you see it, and, well, it just makes billboards not as special as they used to be. It's weird.

And now, I'm a best selling author, a different sort of fairy tale that I still sometimes wonder when I'll wake up from.

I sometimes wonder if I might be a bit of a disappointment to people, because they are expecting all these '80s hits and what they get is a dark industrial wall of noise.

What is the difference between the novelist and the liar? At some moments, I have often wondered.

It's a wonderful narrative device to bring someone from the outside and look through his eyes if you want to describe the absurdity and preposterous reality that is accepted amongst the ones who are inside.

I never thought being famous would be wonderful, but my limited exposure to celebrity has shown me the dark side big-time.