Quotes About Illusion

Love's a lie, an illusion created by weak women and conniving men. An excuse for the middle class to breed and their betters to ignore so they can marry within their own station and build more wealth.

Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. (Someone can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken.)

We might describe ourselves as living the illusion of knowing but not knowing. To know is to act. If we really knew about the state of the world, we would respond to it. It is the same with our unresolved inner problems. There would be no choice about it: we would be a force for change. Wisdom

The mass media causes sexual misdirection: It prompts us to need something deeper than what we want. This is why Woody Allen has made nebbish guys cool; he makes people assume there is something profound about having a relationship based on witty conversation and intellectual discourse. There isn't. It's just another gimmick, and it's no different than wanting to be with someone because they're thin or rich or the former lead singer of Whiskeytown.

I want fake love. But that's all I want, and that's why I can't have it.

there's no such thing as middle-class. The middle class does not exist. If you believe you are part of the middle class, it just means you're rich and insecure or poor and misinformed.

But this is how popular culture works: You allow yourself to be convinced you're sharing a reality that doesn't exist.

We all convince ourselves of things like this- not necessarily about Say Anything, but about any fictionalized portrayals of romance that happen to hit us in the right place, at the right time.

Fake love is a very powerful thing.

I think the larger sect of liars are people who think they are telling the truth, but who really have no idea what the truth is.

Woody Allen made it acceptable for beautiful women to sleep with nerdy, bespectacled goofballs; all we need to do is fabricate the illusion of intellectual humor, and we somehow have a chance.

Nothing is completely authentic. Even the guys who kill themselves are partially acting.

Julia's fake love for Vance was exhilarating and idiotic; it was the kind of love you can only feel toward someone you don't actually know.

The 1980 George W. S. Trow essay "Within the Context of No Context" argued that "the work of television is to establish false contexts and to chronicle the unraveling of existing contexts.

Tricks Aren't Illusions

It was a version of nothing so close to something it accidentally became everything.

People will look at the world without seeing anything beyond their unconscious expectation.

Well, that's how it always seems, until it doesn't.

We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Reality means you live until you die...the real truth is nobody wants reality.

I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.

Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don't die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.

Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed.