Quotes About Illusion

Agent Jones held Sinjin's face in his hands. "I'm going to make balloon animals. People need balloon animals." "How right you are, strange delusional man," Sinjin said.

The beast attempts a beautific look that could be mistaken for a bout of painful wind.

The rules of magic, my dear, are best not discussed. For once we understand the illusion, we no longer believe in it.

She smiled as sweetly as a show poster for the glorified, all-American Ziegfeld girl just before dumping her second cigarette into Wally's fresh cup of coffee.

I feel like I swallowed a Magritte. Like on the inside, I'm made of clouds and floating eyes, green apples, and slowly rising men in bowler hats.

In truth, it is the simplest act in the world. The trick works because you wish it to. You must remember the most important rule of and successful illusion; First the people must want to believe it.

You have been deceived. Spiritualism is no more a science than thievery. For that's all this is--very skilled dodgers stealing money from the bereaved for a little glint of hope. People see what they want to see when they need to.

Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia.

Do not be tempted by English roses. Their beauty fades, but their thorns are forever.

Can we talk about the miracle that is the Small World ride? It's like an acid trip drag show.

I feel like I swallowed a Magritte. Like on the inside, I'm made of clouds and floating eyes, green apples, and slowly rising men in bowler hats. You are officially the most annoying unreal creature ever. Meet a lot of us, do you?

So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their own doubts. There were no plaques to commemorate mistakes.

People will believe anything if it means they can go on living their lives and not have to think too hard about it.

No me interesa. El amor es un lío, niña. Deja que las demás se vuelvan locas y se hagan ilusiones. ¿Yo? Yo tengo planes.

They will drink their tea. Weight their words. Wear hats against the sun. squeeze their minds into corsets, lest some errant thought should escape and ruin the smooth illusion they hold of themselves and the world as they like it.

But more and more Memphis had begun to ask himself if there had ever been order, or if order was one more myth people repeated so they didn't have to think too much about the violence lurking just under the surface of every polite exchange, every façade of "civilization." And just whom did "order" serve?

But people rarely want the truth. We say that we want it when, really, we like being lied to. We prefer the ether of hope.

Dr. Purchase, the closest likeness to a flesh-and-blood Walter Mitty Logan had ever met

The bar lights glittered on the wet pavement, and jazz wailed out of the open doors of the bars, collinding with the more discordant, driving beats coming from the strip joints, where bored-looking dancers, both male and female, gyrated their hips and humped poles and pretended to be sexy.

Unfortunately, what should or should not be had no relation to what was.

She knew sorrow would always be her companion, no matter what happiness life might hold in store. And while her innocent illusions were forever lost to her, she had been forced to seek and find inner resources she had never imagined she might possess.

We try to get out of these cocoons and make our way down to where our bodies are. We try shoplifting and racist/sexist/ageist humor (trying to offend our way out); we get naked on stage. We try sleep deprivation and razors on our skin. We date creepy, scary sleazes who we half-hope, half-fear might do the cutting for us. But we're so used to living inside a dream, even cutting feels dreamy. We can't get out. We can't wake up.

why worry about the monster beneath the bed when a very real bogeyman sleeps on top of it?

We all wear masks. And the more we have to hide, the more accomplished the veneer.