Realistic Quotes

He wondered for an idle moment if he'd ever see her again, but it didn't look likely. You have to be realistic, after all, and getting through tomorrow seemed like quite the ambition. ~ Joe Abercrombie

A man another woman can steal from you ain't your man no way ~ Alice Randall

I gave her a look. "Rachel."
"Grace, you have to admit this is pretty weird. Say it. You disappearing from the hospital and Olivia is - and Sam suddenly shows up with you and, well, the freaky hallucinogenic mushrooms are looking more and more realistic, especially when you start talking about wolves. Because next step is for Isabel Culpeper to show up saying that everybody's going to be abducted by aliens and I have to tell you,I can't take that in my fragile emotional state. I think that - "
I sighed. "Rachel."
"Fine," she said. She threw her bag in the backseat and climbed in after. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Debbie truly had Tess's best interest at heart with the promoting of romanticized contemplation, and she hoped that such contemplation would make transparent a roses and chocolate candy theme that would ignite a passionate desire in her friend for deep intimate companionship that would make lengthy modifications until it became a candlelight connection that would light up brightly and cause a common smile to take form in the lives of two singles. But the detailed scene of Tess's grander purview on the overall picture placed her friend's intent in a corner of stagnant nothingness that had no realistic chance of ever modifying into the romantic reality that she advocated. ~ Calvin W. Allison

Friends are plenty when the purse is full. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

Thinking rationally is often different from "positive thinking," in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible. ~ Albert Ellis

There was another world below - this was the problem. Another world below that had volume but no form. By day the sea was blue surface and whitecaps, a realistic navigational challenge, and the problem could be overlooked. By night, though, the mind went forth and dove down through the yielding - the violently lonely - nothingness on which the heavy steel ship traveled, and in every moving swell you saw a travesty of grids, you saw how truly and forever lost a man would be six fathoms under. Dry land lacked this z-axis. Dry land was like being awake. Even in chartless desert you could drop to your knees and pound land with your fist and land didn't give. Of course the ocean, too, had a skin of wakefulness. But every point on this skin was a point where you could sink and by sinking disappear. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Lately, because computer technology has made self-publishing an easier and less expensive venture, I'm getting a lot of review copies of amateur books by writers who would be better advised to hone their craft before committing it to print. The best thing you can do as a beginning writer is to write, write, write - and read, read, read. Concentrating on publication prematurely is a mistake. You don't pick up a violin and expect to play Carnegie Hall within the year - yet somehow people forget that writing also requires technical skills that need to be learned, practiced, honed. If I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought, with no prior experience, they could sit down and write a novel and instantly win awards and make their living as a writer, I'd be a rich woman today. It's unrealistic, and it's also mildly insulting to professional writers who have worked hard to perfect their craft. Of course, then you hear stories about people like J.K. Rowling, who did sit down with no prior experience and write a worldwide best-seller...but such people are as rare as hen's teeth. Every day I work with talented, accomplished writers who have many novels in print and awards to their name and who are 'still' struggling to make a living. The thing I often find myself wanting to say to new writers is: Write because you love writing, learn your craft, be patient, and be realistic. Anais Nin said about writing, "It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it bre ~ Terri Windling

One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. We have not been asked about our feelings anyway. Thrown into a vast open sea with no navigation charts and all the marker buoys sunk and barely visible, we have only two choices left: we may rejoice in the breath-taking vistas of new discoveries - or we may tremble out of fear of drowning. One option not really realistic is to claim sanctuary in a safe harbour; one could bet that what seems to be a tranquil haven today will be soon modernized, and a theme park, amusement promenade or crowded marina will replace the sedate boat sheds. The third option not thus being available, which of the two other options will be chosen or become the lot of the sailor depends in no small measure on the ship's quality and the navigation skills of the sailors. Not all ships are seaworthy, however. And so the larger the expanse of free sailing, the more the sailor's fate tends to be polarized and the deeper the chasm between the poles. A pleasurable adventure for the well-equipped yacht may prove a dangerous trap for a tattered dinghy. In the last account, the difference between the two is that between life and death. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

With gritty action and realistic science, Peter Watts brings to life a dark and vivid world. ~ David Brin

Ever since, Kovai had been a trusted companion in her life who brought frolic, magic and romance to her formative years; a silent witness to her tales of joy and sorrow who was never reluctant to offer a shoulder to cry. ~ Neetha Joseph

In France, it's always about life, normal life. We always stick with these realistic things. So when French people are dreaming about American movies, they go and see the thrillers, and Westerns, and science fiction, huge entertaining movies. ~ Berenice Bejo

Today, Democrats not only have the White House; they have the Senate too. So we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve, while at the same recognizing that realism should never be confused with capitulation. ~ Mitch McConnell

I was doing something that the officials or art commission probably didn't consider important ... I was experimenting with different kinds of realistic art, impressionism and the more decorative compositions of different forms of painting, which took away from the earlier photographic realism that I was doing. ~ E. J. Hughes

To really 'live,' that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can life with. You must find yourself acceptable to 'you.' ~ Maxwell Maltz

Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I'd never been turned down before. In my experience guys have enjoyed being pursued. Appreciated it, even. Maybe it would be nice to let the guy make the first move, but there's a lot of competition for the good ones. If you don't get aggressive and make things happen, some other girl snaps him up while you're sitting around waiting for an invitation. It's exhausting. And sure, it would be nice to be wooed, but it's not realistic. Especially in college. These boys are lazy. ~ Jana Aston

It's wrong to take even those occasional long sentences in the Quixote with loose structures, and subdivide, tighten and correct them because they are not instances of stylistic carelessness but examples of Cervantes's masterly creation of realistic dialogue: His amused observation of the deleterious effects of natural verbosity, or of passionate interest in the subject under discussion, on the speaker's grammar. ~ John Rutherford

Arbogast had then assembled a dream team of creative consultants and contractors to help make his bold claim a reality, luring some of the videogame industry's brightest stars away from their own companies and projects, with the sole promise of collaborating on his groundbreaking new MMOs. That was how gaming legends like Chris Roberts, Richard Garriott, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Gabe Newell, and Shigeru Miyamoto had all wound up as consultants on both Terra Firma and Armada - along with several big Hollywood filmmakers, including James Cameron, who had contributed to the EDA's realistic ship and mech designs, and Peter Jackson, whose Weta Workshop had rendered all of the in-game cinematics. ~ Ernest Cline

There is always a realistic way to fulfill any dream. There has never been a dream that you can't have - at least, not the heart of it, not the part you love the most. ~ Barbara Sher

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. ~ Anna Barnes

There is no point in being realistic about here and now, no use at all not any, and so it is not the nineteenth but the twentieth century, there is no realism now, life is not real it is not earnest, it is strange which is an entirely different matter. ~ Gertrude Stein

Alright. Let's get realistic now. You know and I know that the function of that number was just to provide some sort of warm-up trash before we do something HEAVY. Something a little bit harder to listen to, but which is probably better for you in the LONG RUN. The item in this instance, which will be better for you in the LONG RUN, and if we only had a little more space up here we could make it visual for you, is "Some Ballet Music," which we've played at most of our concert series in Europe. Generally in halls where we had a little bit more space and Motorhead and Kansas could actually fling themselves across the stage, and give you their teenage interpretation of the art of The Ballet. I don't think it's too safe to do it here, maybe they can just hug each other a little bit and do some calisthenics in the middle of the stage. ~ Frank Zappa

It's not an academic question any more to ask what's going to happen to a cloud. People very much want to know - and that means there's money available for it. That problem is very much within the realm of physics and it's a problem very much of the same caliber. You're looking at something complicated, and the present way of solving it is to try to look at as many points as you can, enough stuff to say where the cloud is, where the warm air is, what its velocity is, and so forth. Then you stick it into the biggest machine you can afford and you try to get an estimate of what it's going to do next. But this is not very realistic. ~ James Gleick

Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness is Adophe Monod at his best. It is a masterpiece, bringing together profound comfort, realistic understanding, practical wisdom, and heavenly glory for every believer and, in a special way, for those who are preparing for or are working directly in some ministry. By the Spirit's grace, if you digest Monod's book slowly, seriously, and prayerfully, you will make great spiritual gain as you engage in holy warfare against your own temptations and lusts. You really must read this book. ~ Joel Beeke

If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong
not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck
if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

We cannot know the future, nor can we change it, ... It is best to be realistic about such things. But we have the time we have been given. So let us treasure it while we can. ~ Geraldine Brooks

Epcot Center also features pavilions built by various foreign nations, where you can experience an extremely realistic simulation of what life in these nations would be like if they consisted almost entirely of restaurants and souvenir stores. ~ Dave Barry

In my world, I don't believe in forever promises. I don't think it's realistic. ~ Evangeline Lilly

Merely exhorting people to be more committed to God - "just have more faith" - seldom produces greater confidence and dedicated trust in God. Rather, what is needed is a realistic picture of a flourishing life lived deeply in tune with God 's kingdom - a life that is so utterly compelling that failure to exercise greater commitment to life in that kingdom will feel like a foolish, tragic missed opportunity for entering into something truly dramatic and desirable. ~ J.P. Moreland

To fight my enemies I need friends behind me, and I'm clean out of friends. You have to be realistic. It's been a while since my ambitions went beyond getting through each day alive. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Anybody who pretends to be objective isn't realistic. ~ William Klein

The Realistic
Vision acknowledges that people vary widely both physically and
intellectually - in large part because of natural inherited differences - and
therefore will rise (or fall) to their natural levels. Therefore governmental
redistribution programs are not only unfair to those from whom the wealth
is confiscated and redistributed, but the allocation of the wealth to those
who did not earn it cannot and will not work to equalize these natural
inequalities. ~ Michael Shermer

A little-known company with a realistic framework that appeals to entrepreneurial employees is going to be more attractive than a famous company that treats its people like disposable assets. ~ Reid Hoffman

I love acting, especially if it's a fantasy of some kind, where it's not just realistic, it's not naturalism. ~ Gene Wilder

You have to have a balance and understand that as much as you would like to have absolute control over everything, it's just not realistic. ~ Khoi Vinh

Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both. ~ Criss Jami

I went to the shoemaker to collect his wastepaper. One of them asked me if my book was communistic. I replied that it was realistic. He cautioned me that it was not wise to write of reality. ~ Carolina Maria De Jesus

I think that it's important to try to keep reality. I think that Gabriel Garcia Marquez speaks a lot about reality in his magical realism. So I don't think we have to be hyper-realistic. But we have to understand the pressures that undergird the lives of the characters within that novel. ~ Walter Mosley

Ambition is disfigured into arrogance when it becomes unmoored from self-awareness, from a realistic assessment of one's competences. ~ Maria Popova

Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be
right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once). ~ Michael J. Fox

To mistake ugliness for reality is one of the frauds of the realistic school [of writing]. A hunger for the unknown and an aspiration toward beauty were inseparable from civilization. In America the word art was distorted to mean artificial. ~ Anais Nin

Brooke, I'm already gone. The only reason I tried to get away from you boneheads earlier was because I wanted a couple of hours to see the sights before I headed home. Crooked Street maybe. Or Treasure Island. That sweet little bridge you're all so fond of. I can't say I like the Alcatraz tour, though. It's a little too realistic. ~ Kim Harrison

I grew up in the Midwest; you don't know any screenwriters. It didn't seem like a realistic career possibility. ~ Diablo Cody

The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good. ~ A.J. Muste

If we define optimism broadly as the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, then realistic optimism is the tendency to maintain a positive outlook within the constraints of the available "measurable phenomena situated in the physical and social world" (DeGrandpre, 2000, p. 733). With respect to fuzzy meaning, realistic optimism involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences. Examples include being lenient in our evaluation of past events, actively appreciating the positive aspects of our current situation, and routinely emphasizing possible opportunities for the future. With respect to fuzzy knowledge, realistic optimism involves hoping, aspiring, and searching for positive experiences while acknowledging what we do not know and accepting what we cannot know. ~ Sandra L. Schneider

A seductive female voice added, "Hello Henry, I'm the deputy director. But you can call me Samantha."
Henry's response was accusing. "You're a droid!"
"I'm an R9054, one of the most powerful robotic systems devised by Ingermann-Verex, my makers. And I prefer the term humanoid if you don't mind."
Locking onto her image, Henry noted the strange wrap-round view panel enshrouding the top part of the body shell.
Inside, there was a human face seemingly trapped inside an electronic body. Although he'd seen a number of droids with similar face screens, Samantha's was the most realistic, so he guessed her claims of being top of her range were probably right. ~ Andrew R. Williams

People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'
[What It Is (2009)] ~ Dylan Moran

Was he scared? Hell, yeah. But sometimes the only way to change something was to break it first. ~ Joelle Charbonneau

My only supporter and comrade-in-arms was Georg Helm, who had endeavored to formulate an energetic conception of science before me and had presented his results in a treatise [Die Lehre von der Energie] exhibiting great independence of thought. But we were separated by his aversion to a realistic conception of energy. Consequently, each of us considered the other only a half ally, toward whom an attitude of caution was necessary. ~ Wilhelm, Ostwald

The Flower of My Secret is definitely more based in true emotions. I also wanted to make something more realistic, but not naturalistic or simple. ~ Pedro Almodovar

The realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts, but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life. ~ Sam Harris

My goal is to never lose. That may not be realistic, but I'm going to try. ~ Jennie Finch

I'd always hated the word realistic. Or, more truthfully, I'd always hated the way people used the word realistic - as if it were a limitation, as if reality were something that conformed so severely to likelihood that surprising things could never, ever happen. From what I'd seen, reality was much more complicated than that. Sometimes it was remarkably predictable, but a lot of the time it didn't go the way anybody would expect. I didn't believe in using probabilities to rule out possibilities. ~ David Levithan

I have a very realistic image of what marriage should be. It takes effort, but it shouldn't be the hardest thing that you do. ~ Joanna Garcia

But, as in American Sniper, the effect of depicting violence in such a gruesome, realistic way amplifies the sense of awe around masculinity: a man is defined by his willingness to use violence when he must, an even more serious duty when such violence is shown in an unsanitized, realistic, gruesome way. ~ Anonymous

For many people, the only reason to do anything is that it's best for them individually. And I think that's why planners have to be more realistic about devising policies so the stakeholders will say, "I see what you mean - that'll help me." I think expecting people to do the right thing for the right reason leads to a lot of failure in public policy. ~ Donald Shoup

One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion and my culture are the most important in the world – hence my interests should come before the interests of anyone else, or of humankind as a whole. How can we make nations, religions and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world? ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Once you develop confidence in your own ability, you'll be able to make a real contribution to creating a better world. Self-confidence is very important. Not in the sense of blind pride, but as a realistic awareness of what you can do. As human beings we can transform ourselves by our good qualities and reducing our faults. Our intelligence enables us to judge what is good from what is harmful. ~ Dalai Lama

True portraits are never realistic ~ Anne McCaffrey

The theater of the absurd represented a contrast to realistic theater. Its aim was to show the lack of meaning in life in order to get the audience to disagree. The idea was not to cultivate the meaningless. On the contrary. But by showing and exposing the absurd in ordinary everyday situations, the onlookers are forced to seek a truer and more essential life for themselves. ~ Jostein Gaarder

That's what I'm afraid of, that we will become like that. I'm worried that we will outsource our satisfaction, and that our lives will get sucked into the nothingness of video games and television and shockingly realistic pornography. We will just get satisfied, and never drive ourselves forward. Society is fraying - the impact of the Carls, whatever you think about them, is clear. We've lost our way, we don't have a vision for the future anymore. ~ Hank Green

My conception of a novel is that it ought to be a personal struggle, a direct and total engagement with the author's story of his or her own life. This conception, again, I take from Kafka, who, although he was never transformed into an insect, and although he never had a piece of food (an apple from his family's table!) lodged in his flesh and rotting there, devoted his whole life as a writer to describing his personal struggle with his family, with women, with moral law, with his Jewish heritage, with his Unconscious, with his sense of guilt, and with the modern world. Kafka's work, which grows out of the nighttime dreamworld in Kafka's brain, is *more* autobiographical than any realistic retelling of his daytime experiences at the office or with his family or with a prostitute could have been. What is fiction, after all, if not a kind of purposeful dreaming? The writer works to create a dream that is vivid and has meaning, so that the reader can then vividly dream it and experience meaning. And work like Kafka's, which seems to proceed directly from dream, is therefore an exceptionally pure form of autobiography. There's an important paradox here that I would like to stress: the greater the autobiographical content of a fiction writer's work, the *smaller* its superficial resemblance to the writer's actual life. The deeper the writer digs for meaning, the more the random particulars of the writer's life become *impediments* to deliberate dreaming. ~ Jonathan Franzen

First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: 'These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

To call yourself a 'realistic' person is intensely arrogant and naïve. If you do so, you claim that you are capable of understanding reality. And, is there a more silly and arrogant person than the one who claims such an impermissible thing? ~ Vizi Andrei

I love telling truthful honest stories. I suppose I'd love the opportunity to be a superhero within a realistic dramatic piece. It would have opportunity for humor too of course. And ideally I would be the writer/director? (Though I suppose if I was, it is POSSIBLE I would give myself a meaty but smaller part so I could focus on the latter of my duties ... Maybe). ~ E.J. Bonilla

I don't feel that I view things with a pessimistic eye. I should try to say which way events will go rather than which way events should go. We have to be realistic. ~ Henry Kaufman

I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I'm trying to be more nuanced and realistic. I think there has to be a serious examination of the shortcomings of the Euro structure. Euro central institutions, whether it be fiscal policy, monetary policy, financial regulation, are simply not as robust as they are in a currency that has a national government behind it. ~ Stephen Harper

I think it's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's realistic, and it's true to the me that has been developing over the years. I like first-person music. ~ John Lennon

I like myself.

Not once did I ever hate myself.

My basic, but high specs; my decent face; and my pessimistic, but realistic thinking; I didn't hate any single one of them.

But now, for the first time, I was on the verge of hating myself.

I arbitrarily placed my expectations on her, I arbitrarily forced my ideals on her, I arbitrarily acted as if I understood her, and I arbitrarily disappointed myself. Over and over again, I'd warn myself, yet I just wouldn't learn.

- - Even Yukinoshita Yukino tells lies.

For not being able to acknowledge something so obvious, I hate myself. ~ Wataru Watari

The bitterness, the sin you retain, can produce the same results that hurt you. If you were raised in an abusive environment, if you come from a family filled with anger and dysfunction, instead of becoming bitter and angry, why don't you be the one to put an end to the negative cycle?
You can be the one to make a difference. Are you holding on to anger and unforgiveness and passing poison down to the next generation? Or are you willing to let it go so your family can rise to a new level?
I realize it can be very hard to forgive, especially when someone has hurt you, but God will never ask you to do something without giving you the ability to do it.
Forgiveness is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. You don't snap your fingers and make a hurt go away. That's not realistic. But if you'll continue to have the desire to forgive and ask God to help you, then little by little those negative feelings will fade. One day they won't affect you at all. ~ Joel Osteen

Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity. ~ Will Smith

I deal with football from a realistic, logical point of view. ~ Joe Namath

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done. ~ Jason Kidd

For my wife and I, the challenge is to not make every day the best day possible because it's not realistic. ~ Steve Carell

That life sometimes imitates art is a mere Oscar Wilde-ish curiosity; that it should set about to do so in such unseemly haste that between notes and novel (not to mention between the drafted and the printed page) what had been fiction becomes idle fact, invention history--disconcerting! Especially to a fictionist who, like yours truly, had long since turned his professional back on literary realism in favour of the fabulous irreal, and only in this latest enterprise had projected, not without misgiving, a detente with the realistic tradition. It is as if Reality, a mistress too long ignored, must now settle scores with her errant lover. ~ John Barth

So we down-to-earth, gutsy, tough, realistic, and practical types have just been squandering billions of dollars and unimaginable amounts of energy, nerve-work, and materials in whizzing off to the moon to discover, as astronomers knew before, that it was just a dreary slag heap. This is the true, original and scientifically etymological meaning of being lunatics. Crying for the moon. ~ Alan Watts

What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common ... ~ Stephen King

We feasted on love; every mode of it, solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers. She was my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign, my trusty comrade, friends, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend has ever been to me. ~ C.S. Lewis

I am not going to sit here and say I am never going to drink again. That is not realistic. ~ Rob Ford

The recent experience of totalitarianism in Europe was foreshadowed at the French Revolution, when the Committee of Public Safety acted in the same way as the Nazi and Communist parties, setting up 'parallel structures' through which to control the state and to exert a micromanagerial tyranny over every aspect of civil society.
Let us at least be realistic, and recognize that, if totalitarian governments have arisen and spread with such rapidity in modern times, this is because there is something in human nature to which they correspond and on which they draw for their moral energy. ~ Roger Scruton

Throughout my life, I have always supported the human being in his humanism and I have supported the oppressed. I think it is the person's right to live his freedom and it is her and his right to face the injustice imposed on each by revolting against it, using his practical, realistic and available means to end the oppressor's injustice toward him, whether it is an individual, a community, a nation, or a state; whether male or female. ~ Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

CUSTOMER: These books are really stupid, aren't they?
BOOKSELLER: Which ones?
CUSTOMER: You know, the ones where animals like cats and mice are best friends.
BOOKSELLER: I suppose they're not very realistic, but then that's fiction.
CUSTOMER: They're more than unrealistic; they're really stupid.
BOOKSELLER: Well, writers use that kind of thing to teach kids about accepting people different to themselves, you know?
CUSTOMER: Yeah, well, books shouldn't pretend that different people get on like that and that everything is 'la de da' and wonderful, should they? Kids should learn that life's a bitch, and the sooner the better. ~ Jen Campbell

No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there. ~ H.L. Mencken

Those of you who have spent time with Australians know that we are not given to overstatement. By nature we are laconic speakers and by conviction we are realistic thinkers. ~ Julia Gillard

Learning to cultivate an awareness of the known and unknown within one's being often leads to a healthier and more realistic sense of self. ~ Aberjhani

We are fossil fuel addicts. What happens when drug addicts detox? They can be rash, cranky, even psychotic and dangerous. It would be good for the environment if the entire economy abruptly quit fossil fuels, but that's not realistic. I wouldn't want to be around if it ever happened. Perhaps it's best to think of natural gas like methadone. It's a way for an energy addicted society to get off dirtier fuels and smooth out the detox bumps. ~ Russell Gold

Sometimes, when the light starts to fade, I get a terrible feeling of loneliness, like maybe I am the only person in the world. ~ Kate DiCamillo

The knowledge that even the most effective bullying policies of schools failed to protect a student, whose difference attracted unwanted attention and scarring comments, influenced Neha's decision to support John's choice. ~ Neetha Joseph

...I believe there is a legitimate aim of transcendence that is more modest and perhaps more realistic. We may not be able to rule out the skeptical possibility, and we may not be able to ground our normal capacity for understanding on something in which we can have even greater confidence; but it may still be possible to show how we can reasonably retain our natural confidence in the exercise of understanding, in spite of the apparent contingencies of our nature and formation. The hope is not to discover a foundation that makes our knowledge unassailably secure but to find a way of understanding ourselves that is not radically self-undermining, and that does not require us to deny the obvious. The aim would be to offer a plausible picture of how we fit into the world.

Even in this more modest enterprise both theism and naturalistic reductionism fall short. Theism does not offer a sufficiently substantial explanation of our capacities, and naturalism does not offer a sufficiently reassuring one. ~ Thomas Nagel

Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems. ~ Jurgen Habermas

A genius is a grown-up that did not grow up. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I would try to write 'realistic' fiction, and someone would fly, or there would be a black hole full of demons or a girl who attracted frogs. ~ Nnedi Okorafor

We must choose our personal viewpoint. We can embrace a sense of weighty heaviness that comes from knowing that our fate is one of deterioration and death, and our suffering is interminable. Alternatively, we can choose to believe in the unbearable lightness of our being and embrace a world of high-minded thoughts and ideals. The decisions we make are significant regardless if we only have one life to live. We weave our life story out of the choices that we make when confronted with the inevitable opportunities to experience love and friendship and heartache and suffering. During our life, we encounter goodness and evilness, and hope and despair. We must decide whether we accept reality. Alternatively, do we seek to escape the pain that comes from acknowledging the paucity of human existence? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic. ~ Samuel Fuller

Going through the ranks and all the training you do as an actor, you hope you're going to make it. But there's a part of you that's got to be realistic and say: 'Look, it might not happen to me.' ~ Sam Claflin

Most important of all, we should be teaching our children humility and curiosity.
Being humble, here, means being aware of how difficult your instincts can make it to get the facts right. It means being realistic about the extent of your knowledge. It means being happy to say "I don't know." It also means, when you do have an opinion, being prepared to change it when you discover new facts. It is quite relaxing being humble, because it means you can stop feeling pressured to have a view about everything, and stop feeling you must be ready to defend your views all the time.
Being curious means being open to new information and actively seeking it out. It means embracing facts that don't fit your worldview and trying to understand their implications. It means letting your mistakes trigger curiosity instead of embarrassment. "How on earth could I be so wrong about that fact? What can I learn from that mistake? Those people are not stupid, so why are they using that solution?" It is quite exciting being curious, because it means you are always discovering something interesting. ~ Hans Rosling

I know that when I finish a drawing, my anxiety level decreases. The realistic drawings are a way of pinning down an idea. I don't want to loose it. With the abstract drawings, when I'm feeling loose, I can slip into the unconscious. ~ Louise Bourgeois

It was around this time that a routine medical screening warned that Chris might have tuberculosis.
We talked about it on the phone. I remember the discussion vividly, not because of the disease--I thought further testing would say he was fine, which it did--but because of his attitude.
Namely, that he was replaceable.
"If I die, you could just get a new husband and Bubba can get a new dad," he told me.
It made me furious. Heartbroken. It was as if he didn't understand how irreplaceable he was to me, to our son, and to the rest of the family.
It was as if he didn't know how much I loved him.
I realized later that, in his mind, he was only being realistic. He wanted what was best for me. He had seen death up close and watched the mission go on, lives go on, whether people wanted it to or not. If he couldn't be there, he still wanted me to be happy.
Even so, it was a devastating statement at the time. In some ways, I never got over it. ~ Taya Kyle

The mythic American character is made up of the virtues of fairness, self-reliance, toughness, and honesty. Those virtues are generally stuffed into a six-foot-tall, dark-haired, can-do kind of guy who is at once a family man, attractive to strange women, carefree, stable, realistic, and whimsical. in the lore of America, that man lives on the Great Plains. he's from Texas, Dodge City, Cheyenne, the Dakotas, or somewhere in Montana. In fact, the seedbed of this American character, from the days of de Tocqueville through Andrew Jackson, Wyattt Earp, Pony Express riders, pioneers, and cowboys to modern caricatures played by actors such as Tom Mix, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne has aways been the frontier. It's a place with plenty of room to roam, great sunsets, clear lines between right and wrong, and lots of horses. It's also a place that does not exist and never has. The truth is that there has never been much fairness out here. ~ Dan O'Brien