Quotes About Illusion

You remember what I told you," she said as he approached the hook where she had placed his coat. "You move slowly, you do not really move like a woman, for if you moved so fast and so much as a woman, the illusion would be broken, the illusion is a complete lie. You move more slowly than a human creature, and you keep your arms close to your body.

You think I'm a doll, don't you? You think I'm cute and made of poured wax and you'll stay as long as I stay.

In her longer concealing gowns, she moves as a wraith through the rooms around her as if they are not real to her, and she, the ghost of a dancer, seeks for some perfect setting she alone can find.

How could anyone ever trust Cary Grant, I wondered—a man who looked as though he were made entirely of wood?

fancy traps to capture a past that had never existed, to create a feeling of solidity for people who lived moment to moment in a fear of death bordering on hysteria.

What a simple trusting being she was, with her eyes and mouth happily painted, and cheeks rouged, her breasts thrust forward and held in place by tight straps beneath her black silk dress.

something that looks human but it's a ghost

I wanted those waters to be blue. And they were not.

every social problem is observed in relation to 'norms' which in fact never existed, people

In a flash I saw the boy in the man's eyes. Only it could not be true. I could not have such luck. For the boy had beauty as bountiful as Bianca's. I did not count upon it.

The will of a single god can be felt by all but those who are lost in delusion.

But before we cut to Present Time, let me have my little fantasy. I need it (Chapter 1).

I never found another like him, with so much passion and so many happy delusions, but then I never much looked.

Sometimes we are blinded by the translation we want to be true, and not the one that is correct.

I saw myself in her gaze, a hooded being of burnt black sticks for a neck and wrists with gloves for hands and a floating leather mask for a face.

Slowly over my consciousness of the sickbed and the humid room there dropped the dark veil of Heaven. Spread out in all directions were the sentinel stars, splendid as they shone above the glinting towers of the glass city, and in this half-sleep, now aided by the most tranquil and blissful illusions, the stars sang to me.

Her eyes were round and extremely large. Her lips were perfectly rouged, and there came a perfume from her that was no doubt made by a Persian magician to drive us out of our wits.

Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.

I am apt to think she was too artful to rail at me, but rather pretended to have a kindness for me, and like Iago gave, as she saw occasion, wounds in the dark.

You can dress a pig up in satin and lace and its still a pig. Francis smiled hazily. Are you calling my intended a pig, Charles? Charles raised a dark eyebrow. Intended what, Francis? You surely cant be having respectable inclinations towards this girl. The bullet hit your arm, not your head.

He pushed away from the door, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. He looked like the devil, he thought with a trace of wry amusement. And dear, sweet, murderous Emma was a Botticelli angel, ripe for debauching.

You think we're a family,' Cody said, turning back. 'You think we're some jolly, situation-comedy family when we're in particles, torn apart, torn all over the place, and our mother was a witch.

The disappointments seemed to escape the family's notice, though. That was another of their quirks: they had a talent for pretending that everything was fine. Or maybe it wasn't a quirk at all. Maybe it was just further proof that the Whitshanks were not remarkable in any way whatsoever.

He honestly believed, for an instant, that what he'd heard was music-a tune piped, a burble of notes, a little scrap of melody floating by on wind and breaking his heart.