Quotes About Reality

No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you'll never see reflected what's inside.

We were, the two of us, still fragmentary beings, just beginning to sense the presence of an unexpected, to be-aquired reality that would fill us and make us whole.

What we needed were not words and promises but a steady accumulation of small realities.

That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.

Strong and independent? I'm neither. I'm just being pushed along by reality, whether I like it or not.

It's not me but the world that's deranged.

Maybe she thought the garbage and rocks in your head were interesting. But finally, garbage is garbage and rocks are rocks.

There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me.

The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to to forget all that. Don't you agree? Two-thirds of earth's surface is ocean, and all we can see with the naked eye is the surface: the skin.

Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid - From the short story Thailand

He does not exist here, with me, but flesh that does not exist will never die, and promises unmade are never broken.

Mountains, according to the angle of view, the season, the time of day, the beholder's frame of mind, or any one thing, can effectively change their appearance. Thus, it is essential to recognize that we can never know more than one side, one small aspect of a mountain.

Where I'm living is not a storybook world. It's the real world, full of gaps and inconsistencies and anticlimaxes.

So many dreams, so many disappointments, so many promises. And in the end, they all just vanish.

Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.

What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's only one reality.

How can I put this? There's a king of gap between what I think is real and what's really real. I get this feeling like some kind of little something-or-other is there, somewhere inside me... like a burglar is in the house, hiding in a wardrobe... and it comes out every once in a while and messes up whatever order or logic I've established for myself. The way a magnet can make a machine go crazy.

Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.

But it has finally hit me: she is neither a concept nor a symbol nor a metaphor. She actually exists: she has warm flesh and a spirit that moves. I never should have lost sight of that warmth and that movement.

I think most people live in fiction...That's how you keep your fragile body intact.

Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That's life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what's going on.

it occurred to me what a simple thing reality is, how easy it is to make it work. It's just reality. Just housework. Just a home. Like running a simple machine. Once you learn to run it, it's just a matter of repetition. You push this button and pull that lever. You adjust a gauge, put on the lid, set the timer. The same thing, over and over.