Quotes About Illusion

LII. To them that are sick of the jaundice, honey seems bitter; and to them that are bitten by a mad dog, the water terrible; and to children, a little ball seems a fine thing. And why then should I be angry? or do I think that error and false opinion is less powerful to make men transgress, than either choler, being immoderate and excessive, to cause the jaundice; or poison, to cause rage?

when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them.

Whether it is a natural instinct or a mere illusion, I can't say; but one's emotions are more strongly aroused by seeing the places that tradition records to have been the favourite resort of men of note in former days, than by hearing about their deeds or reading their writings. My own feelings at the present moment are a case in point. I am reminded of Plato, the first philosopher, so we are told, that made a practice of holding discussions in this place;

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.

The desire to be loved is the last illusion Give it up and you will be free.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn't necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.

The inventor of the mirror did few of us any favours: we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like.

Even an obvious fabrication is some comfort when you have few others.

The world that we think we see is only our best guess.

He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.

Not real can tell us about real.

Because you are never here but always there, I forget not you but what you look like You drift down the street in the rain, your face dissolving, changing shape, the colours running together My walls absorb you, breathe you forth again, you resume yourself, I do not recognize you You rest on the bed watching me watching you, we will never know each other any better than we do now

As with all knowledge, once you knew it, you couldn't imagine how it was that you hadn't known it before. Like stage magic, knowledge before you knew it took place before your very eyes, but you were looking elsewhere.

Mushrooms were the roses in the garden of that unseen world, because the real mushroom plant was underground. The parts you could see - what most people called a mushroom - was just a brief apparition. A cloud flower.

And he couldn't stand to be nothing, to know himself to be nothing. He needs to be listened to, he needs to be heard. He needs at least the illusion of being understood.

The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there's a dark side to beauty, as with poisonous butterflies.

She knows she's deceiving herself about that, but she prefers to deceive herself. She desperately needs to believe such pure joy is still possible.

Now I only need to look out at them through my sky-blue eyes. They see their own ill will staring them in the forehead and turn tail. Before, I was not a witch. But now I am one.

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

They blink and reality shivers.

What you get is no longer what you see.

You're dead, Cordelia.' No I'm not. 'Yes you are. You're dead. Lie down.

In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand? There is no house, there is no breakfast, yet here I am

Is it real? No, it is not real. What is this not real? Not real can tell us about real.