Quotes About Imagination

Even the most ridiculous of stories can contain a grain of truth.

The past can be as difficult to imagine as the future. It would be helpful in life, as in confusing books, to have an author, if that's the right word, explaining to us everything we find bewildering, in the hopes we all might feel better.

and to never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian Wolfsnake near a typewriter.

figuratively jumping

Just because you can picture something does not make it so.

But just because you can picture something does not make it so.

The curious thing about being told to sleep on it - a phrase which here means, as I'm sure you know, 'to go to bed thinking about something and reach a conclusion in the morning' - is that you usually can't. If you are thinking over a dilemma, you are likely to toss and turn all night long, thinking over terrible things that can happen and trying to imagine what in the world you can do about it, and these circumstances are unlikely to result in any sleeping at all.

But I will take a page from the book of the Snow Scout leader, and skip ahead to the next interesting thing that happened, which was very, very late at night, when so many interesting parts of stories happen and so many people miss them because they are asleep in their beds, or hiding in the broom closet of a mustard factory, disguised as a dustpan to fool the night watchwoman. It

trivial as her hair. This morning she was thinking about how to construct

Ike always loved the sunshine, and I like to imagine that wherever he is now, it's as sunny as can be. Of course, nobody knows what happens to you after you die, but it's nice to think of my husband someplace very, very hot, don't you think?

but you can't invent things like time,"Violet said. "You can invent things like automatic popcorn poppers. You can invent things like steam-powered window washers. But you can't invent more time.

Some of the simplest things in life are the most difficult to imagine.

Who knows what any of those people or fish would do in our shoes?" Violet said. "It's impossible to know.

Popinsh!" Sunny shrieked. "Sunny means," Violet said, "that Dr. Orwell hypnotized Klaus and caused that terrible accident, didn't she?" "Conceivably," Shirley said. "And he's being hypnotized again, right now, isn't he?" Violet asked. "It's within the bounds of the imagination," Shirley said.

In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with out eyes closed, and all out stories end the same way, too.

It is curious to look at one's family and try to imagine how they look to strangers.

of the necessary equipment to invent really top-notch

If your mind is on a book, for example, you may see the world of the book around you, even if you are not reading at the time

When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see that what had first appeared to be walls were large cardboard boxes stacked up in every available place, making the room seem smaller than it really was. The dark was real, though. It almost always is.

cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and as he talked to the children he looked at them through the rearview mirror.

All of the most important questions in life are dismissed most of the time by most of the people, and it is true that much of the world prefers to do something more practical . . . But something happens when you think about these enormous questions. As you imagine, for instance, a chicken emerging from an egg which has emerged from a chicken which has emerged from an egg, your mind wanders as if on a voyage, and as with any voyage, you are likely to discover something along the way.

There were books on all sorts of topics, from exciting things of vital importance to things that nobody had a reason to care about, but in a library the topics keep taking turns being important or interesting. Each patron in a library is looking for something different, and so the book you hardly notice is the book someone else is breathless to find, and the book that always makes you smile is busy making someone else sick.

There were no books in the room as far as I could see. I should have known better.

Perhaps one night, when you were very small, someone tucked you into bed and read you a story called "The Little Engine That Could," and if so then you have my profound sympathies, as it is one of the most tedious stories on Earth. The story probably put you right to sleep, which is the reason it is read to children, so I will remind you that the story involves the engine of a train that for some reason has the ability to think and talk.