Quotes About Realism

In Western European realist fiction, what is a writer going to do (we wondered out loud) with the irrational, with synchronicities, with superstition and the private magic we invent to keep us out of harm's way, with the uncanny, with thought streams and digressions that contradict our attempt to fix the story?

the platitude "If you love each other, you can work it out" is not necessarily true. Instead, the more you love each other, the more unrealistic your expectations of perfect understanding, and the more painful the metamessage of misunderstanding. And that, in turn, is why so many people, finding that they can't work it out, conclude that they don't—or even less logically, never did—love each other.

if the thought of conflict and trouble makes you chortle gleefully and race to your computer, you are definitely in the right place. If you love conflict, chances are your characters will be flawed and in trouble. That's a good thing. Here's why: People with perfect lives are boring, and . . . well . . . frankly, they're irritating. How

May shook her head. "Don't imagine you can change a man unless he's wearing a diaper.

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen. —RALPH MARSTON

My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall - that is my strength, my only strength.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.

Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

I soon found out you can't change the world. The best you can do is to learn to live with it.

I knew from a very early age, that what I saw on tv had nothing to do with real life. So I wanted to make a record of real life. That included having a camera with me at all times.

I write the lyrics based on what is going on in my life - I'm not going to write about the old hair metal stuff, like castles and stuff.

Renaissance painters saw everything from one perspective, photographically, "realistically," but medieval painters looked at a scene from several different perspectives at once. A medieval picture looked at with this in mind becomes very exciting indeed. It is as if the artist is everywhere at once: the castle is tiny as if seen from afar; the men on its battlements huge as if encountered face to face; this lake is seen from that distance and that tree from this.

Write non-fiction like fiction, so the reader is constantly turning the page to find out what happens next, and write fiction like non-fiction, so that when your character walks out of the donut shop and turns left into the nunnery, there really is a nunnery next door and not a muffler shop.

Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up.

I don't have this fantasy about marriage anymore. Everyone says it takes hard work. Well, it kind of does - and I'm much more pragmatic about romance than I used to be.

She knew by some sure instinct that when you had come right up against it, as Jeff had, you had no use for people who advised you to brace up, or who pointed out bright spots. She know that there is nothing so infuriating, when you are bearing all you can, as shallow, unrealistic optimism from someone who has not experienced the same disaster.

It would not be like a movie. It would be like life in Ireland: cold and hard and with no happy ending.

No exijas que los acontecimientos sucedan como deseas. Acéptalos tal como son realmente. Así te será posible ser feliz.

Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would want them too. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible

The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.

If I had been a more realistic and reasonable person, if I had not been twenty-one and still fooling myself, I would have said, Wait.