Quotes About Illusion

What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesn't know it's dead.

a big band sound that makes you feel like everything's okay, a feeling that lasts for one song maybe, the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.

What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesn't know it's dead.

We see only a part of the surface of things. The rest will be forever hidden from us, to be appreciated for its felt but unfathomed presence.

They all blur together these days—the smell of manure and buttered popcorn, urine and cotton candy, hay and innocence. He wrings his hands again and then stands up. Bob hobbles over to the corner, goosebumps rippling across his flesh, and he begins to wash off the cloud of white, his costume of the day, the way he is able to meander through any festive occasion with hardly a worry—balloons in hand, a smile on his face, knots twisting in his gut, blood filling his shoes.

Contract freedom quickly revealed itself as a delusion when those negotiating contracts were so incommensurate in wealth and power.

The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened.

That's how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that's what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and 'settle down' when they have families.

It's the great sentimental lie of the suburbs, and I've been making you subscribe to it all this time.

The movies were wonderful because they took you out of yourself, and at the same time they gave you a sense of being whole. Things of the world might serve to remind you at every turn that your life was snarled and perilously incomplete, that terror would never be far from possession of your heart, but those perceptions would nearly always vanish, if only for a little while, in the cool and nicely scented darkness of any movie house, anywhere.

That's how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that's what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and 'settle down' when they have families. It's the great sentimental lie of the suburbs

Yes, me." She made a claw of her hand and clutched at her collarbone. "Me. Me. Me. Oh, you poor, self-deluded—Look at you! Look at you, and tell me how by any stretch"—she tossed her head, and the grin of her teeth glistened white in the moonlight—"by any stretch of the imagination you can call yourself a man!

E' stato così che noi due abbiamo accettato quest'enorme illusione, perché di questo si tratta: un'enorme, oscena illusione: l'idea che, una volta messa su famiglia, la gente debba rinunciare alla vita reale e "sistemarsi".E' la grande menzogna sentimentalistica piccolo borghese. la menzogna che ti ho obbligato ad accettare per tutto questo tempo.

Love is rarely flawless," Carter pointed out. "Humans delude themselves by thinking it has to be. It is the imperfection that makes love perfect.

So far I'm not seeing a lot of difference between me and a carnival con-man.

Do you believe in fairy tales?" "What...what kind of fairy tales?" "The kind you aren't supposed to waste your life on.

Rose once told me about this poem she'd read. There was this line, 'If your eyes weren't open, you wouldn't know the difference between dreaming and waking.' You know what I'm afraid of? That someday, even with my eyes open, I still won't know.

John Cusack is standing over there." I followed his incredulous gaze to where a man very like Mr. Cusack did indeed stand, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a building. I sighed. "That's not John Cusack. That's Jerome." "Seriously?" "Yup. I told you he looked like John Cusack." "Keyword: looked. That guy doesn't look like him. That guy is him.

You're imagining things. Clearly, my stunning beauty has clouded your mind. -Rose Hathaway

Insane is such an ugly word, a voice in my head said. Think of it as obtaining a new look at reality.

The truth, huh? No one wants to hear the truth. The truth is never sexy. But you... You are too goddamned sexy to be real. -Christian to Lissa

Is she for real?" He paused and reconsidered. "Are you for real? Spells? Magic? I mean, don't get me wrong. I drink blood and control people's minds. But I've never heard of anything like this.

You can put on as many airs as you want, but in the end, that dress is the same as you: an old, cheap design dressed up to look like its worth more than it is.

Rose once told me "If your eyes weren't open, you wouldn't know the difference between dreaming and waking." Adrian Ivashkov to Sydney Sage