Quotes About Illusion

Maybe if it were up to me I wouldn't have the whole world collectively believe in Santa Claus, but I would definitely have them collectively believe in something , because there is a messed-up kind of beauty in the way we can all bend over backward to make life seem magical when we want to.

And I find myself saying, "It wasn't really about her." And finding it's true. "What do you mean?" Norah asks. "It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn't about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love." Norah

And once I'm pretending that's the truth, I figure it might as well be the truth.

Freedom.' He pauses a moment to reflect on the F-word. 'Sometimes I think it's an idea that enslaves us. We're never free from hungering for the notion that we can even have freedom. When perhaps it's the very idea of it that causes us to suffer.

Be careful what you're doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.

It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn't about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love." Norah

I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soulmate. Just in case she was mine.

The greatest curse, he'd thought, was to be stuck in one's own time—and the greatest power was to see beyond its horizons. Studying history had given him the illusion of observing safely from outside the trap. Only that's what the world was: a trap. The circumstances you were born to, the situations you found yourself in—to dodge that fray was impossible. And what you did within it was your life.

How wrong she'd been, to believe a mind could reign over anything. For it did not reign even over itself . . . and despite all the arguments of all the philosophers, Ester now saw that thought proved nothing.

How wrong she'd been, to believe a mind could reign over anything. For it did not reign even over itself . . . and despite all the arguments of all the philosophers, Ester now saw that thought proved nothing. Had Descartes, near his own death, come at last to see his folly?

And so blinded was she by those gleams of glory which the stars fling into the eyes of young lovers, that she saw perfection where none existed... p146

He was suffering from the loss of an illusion.

Every beautiful facade seemed to conceal rot and ruin that I could almost see.

he knew that fate was only a mythological concept

She was plagued again by the feeling that the room in which she stood, the earth on which it was built, and the universe in which it turned were as insubstantial as smoke, subject to sudden change.

You will see that this is true, though you will also see that between the mad and the misguided, the line is as thin as a split hair that has been split again.

Dreams that are as rich as cream while they unfold are skim milk when we wake, and in time they wash out of our minds, leaving as little residue as water filtered through cheesecloth.

Everything is more than it seems, but nothing is as mysterious as it appears to be.

Her exceptional beauty also helps her to keep her secrets. Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.

I don't know if this deception qualified as a half-step down the slippery slope. I had no sensation of sliding. But of course we never notice the descent until we're rocketing along at high velocity.

One thing we've noticed is these days people see all kinds of things they don't want to see, so they go blind." "Selectively blind.

He had to lie to himself about life, pretend it was less hard than it really was, and then press forward by one slippery means or another, all the while deluding himself into believing that he was conquering the world.

Even if there are moments during the day when all seems normal and when every action of your own and of those around you seems to be unremarkable, the appearance of ordinariness is an illusion, and just below the placid surface, the world is seething.

Where does fiction end and reality begin?