Quotes About Reality

The function of religion is to make us feel better, by peddling a lie. The function of philosophy, and a carefully chosen birthday card, is to make us feel worse, by telling the truth. And the truth is of course: we get worse.

A hole is defined by its edges, and these are not part of the hole. So a hole can exist only if there is something that is not a hole.

A reader finds a new reality on the page, interacts with an imaginary world, and is enriched by doing so.

Downer: When the searing prose of the night before reads so bleakly pedestrian in the cold light of morning

The world is on fire, young man. As writers, it is only proper that we do what we can to warn people. But in telling the truth to the world, don't lie to yourself. Write whatever you want. Tell the truth. Just don't imagine that you are changing anything. Like I said, people just want to have a good time. -Snagglepuss

We are a species hungry for illusion. A powerful illusion not only convinces us it's real, it becomes more meaningful to us than reality.

The world is exactly as it appears, if only you look hard enough.

Everything you do, everything you'll ever accomplish, your life's work, your kids' life's work: horseshit. (Ecclesiastes) [God Is Disappointed in You]

Angst is the intellectual observation that fairy tales aren't true—that there is an unhappy end to every happy beginning. Angst

Former petroleum industry analyst Jan Lundberg puts it this way, "The nation and most of the rest of the world is chasing a technofix instead of adjusting to ecological/economic reality.

Sex is the theory; porn is the practice.

One of the most difficult things for people who have been successful in sports is adapting to the daily world where you can't get an answer from someone until 5 o'clock tomorrow. There is always an excuse. Living 40 or 50 years like that doesn't get too exciting after a while.

How did we take this life picture and somehow misconstrue it to mean that if we just believed in Jesus, our lives would be wealthy, prosperous, and happy? Jesus doesn't promise that. Jesus says that many great things will come to those who follow Him, but He also promises a whole lot of lousy. And here's the key: The lousy isn't rotten. The lousy isn't sin. The focus of your life is not supposed to be dodging lousy. Because lousy is life. And lousy is important.

A poem is a place where the conditions of beyondness and withinness are made palpable, where to imagine is to feel what it is like to be. It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, a poem permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.

Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.

In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

Here's where my pastoral fantasy ran aground: the pound of organic butter cost six dollars and fifty cents. The ceiling for buying my way into grace was about five bucks.

The world doesn't work like this, he tried to tell himself. The world is not sick and evil like this.

Pino shrugged. "Maybe he liked the sound of it. Pino Lella." Mimo snorted. "You do live in a fantasy world." They

As long as the physical universe remains our point of reference, we will never find what we are looking for.

An investment philosophy is a set of beliefs about: the nature of investment reality: how markets work, why prices move; a theory of value, including how value can be identified, and what causes profits and losses; and the nature of a good investment.

Iíve seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.