What You See Is Not Real Quotes

I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter any more, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me
- Noah The Notebook ~ Nicholas Sparks

The most important thing in my life, and the thing I try to focus on, is to try not to live a life of cruelty. That means trying to make sure I look people in the eye when I meet them. Sometimes you jump in a taxi, or maybe you only have two minutes with someone, and you never see them again. I try to always look them in the eye and have a real experience of what it is to communicate with someone ... I guess it's about trying to live a life where I'm not contributing to the cruelty in the world ... While I am on this planet, I want everyone I meet to know that I am grateful they are here. ~ Jessica Chastain

I think it's very important for everyone in America to realize right now the state of our country, not just on this issue but on a lot of issues, that it is time to get active again. People have just sat back and just sort of said, oh, let somebody else do it for a long time, and we're seeing what's happening to the country, even freedom of speech. It's not going well. So I think this is a real opportunity for people to see, yes, if you do get out and you do get active, there are other people there. You just have to seek them out. ~ Mary Steenburgen

The costumes help. They make it less real, disguise what it really is both for the actors and for the people who'll see it on the screen. It's like the people who read Anna Karenina, and because it's in Russia they can say, 'Oh, that's not my pain they're talking about.' And Chris is tough. She goes from one thing to the next and doesn't worry about the past. When a cat sits mere purring on your lap, you know for a fact she isn't thinking about her former owner; she's thinking about her dinner. That's Chris. ~ Barbara Hambly

Because..." he used to cradle his daughter in his arms every morning and often they would exchange soft nuances "...if you can dream it, if you can see it in your visions at night, if you can feel it in your soul, it's yours! And it never really belonged to anyone else, in the first place! It was always yours!" Viera returned her scroll to the drawer and closed it, she kissed the compass around her neck and climbed into her bed under the warm quilts, the candle flame crackled and the memories of her father's arms around her embraced her there in bed and his deep, hoarse voice resounded in her ears; "... and if you chance upon a treasure that is yours and it happens to be in the possession of someone else, it's not very wrong to take what is yours, to take what you dreamed, what you saw in your visions at night, what you felt visit you in your spirit! Sure, it's not lawful, but aye aye my little one, listen to me when I tell you that the best things in life are not under the laws of any sort! For which law created love? Which law created courage? The best things, the real things, are the things that are not measured by any man's laws! Fear is the only thing that any law has ever created! And what kind of pirates would we all be if we were afraid of any of our fears, even a little! ~ C. JoyBell C.

March 28, 2005
I am so ready to be home I have already gone into autopilot mode. Just counting the days, waiting for that big bird to take me home. I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling good. Hopefully getting off the pill will help. Hopefully when I get home I can help with your emotions. Whatever you need, just tell me. I want to make things easy for you when I am home. At least as easy as possible. I love you so much gorgeous. Glad to hear your dad has busted his ass to help us out so much. We are so lucky with our family, I couldn't have married into a better one. Not to mention couldn't have married a better woman, cause there is none better. I also got an email from your niece. It was a PowerPoint slide that was real cute. It had a green background with a frog, and said she missed me. Sweet, huh. If she didn't forward a copy to you, I can. Oh, about the birth control: You said you wanted ten kids anyway. Change your mind yet? What is Bubba doing that has changed? Is he being a fart or is he just full of energy? I'm sure when I get home you will be ready for a break. How about after I get to see you for a little while, you go to a spa for a weekend to be pampered? I REALLY think you deserve it. You've been going and going, kinda like the Energizer Bunny. Just like when I get home for sex, we keep going and going and going and going and, you get the point. Hopefully you at least smiled over that. I always want you to be happy, and want to do whatever it takes t ~ Taya Kyle

Layla!" Don bounded into her sight. The door behind her was still bolted. Where had he come from?
The starshot tumbled from her hands and clattered to the floor. She snatched it up and slipped it back inside her dress. Bill was gone.But Don was-Daniel was right where she wanted him to be.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice broke with the force of having to act surprised to see him.
He didn't seem to hear it.He rushed toward her and wrapped her in his arms. "Saving your life."
"How did you get in?"
"Don't worry about that.No mortal man, no slab of stone can obstruct a love as true as ours. I will always find you."
In his bare, bronzed arms, it was Luce's instinct to feel comforted. But she couldn't right then.Her heart felt ragged and cold.This easy happiness, these feelings of complete trust, every one of the lovely emotions Daniel had shown her how to feel in every life-they were torture to her now.
"Fear not," he whispered. "Let me tell you, my love, what happens after this life.You come back,you rise again. Your rebirth is beautiful and real.You come back to me,again and again-"
The light from the lamp flickered and made his violet eyes sparkle.His body was so warm against hers.
"But I die again and again."
"What?" He tilted his head.Even when his physique looked exotic to her, she knew his expressions so well-that bemused adoration when she expressed something he hadn't expected her to understand. "How do you-Never mind. ~ Lauren Kate

You expect me to believe you're a witch? A broom riding, cauldron stirring, poison apple witch? Witches are Fae, Angelina," Dasan mocked.
"No, you creeper, witches are not Fae. Maybe some are, but there are mortals who practice witchcraft, and I'm one of them!" Angelina almost spit the words at him. "And we don't ride brooms, get real! How Hans Christian Anderson are you, anyway? As for poison apples, you'll be lucky to not get served one in your lifetime! I mean, you and your buddy here turn into giant ... what are you ... dogs ... but you can't believe in a little earth magic? Grow up!"
"See, this is the kind of conversation that would crop up on like a third or fourth date," I chimed in, unable to help myself.
-told by Finley in The Sacred Oath ~ D.C. Grace

What about you, Snipes?" Dunbar asked. "You think there to be mountain lions up here or is it just folks' imaginings?"

Snipes pondered the question a few moments before speaking.

They's many a man of science would claim there aint because you got no irredeemable evidence like panther scat or fur or tooth or tail. In other words, some part of the animal in questions. Or better yet having the actual critter itself, the whole think kit and caboodle head to tail, which all your men of science argue is the best proof of all a thing exists, whether it be a panther, or a bird, or even a dinosaur."

To put it another way, if you was to stub your toe and tell the man of science what happened he'd not believe a word of it less he could see how it'd stoved up or was bleeding. But your philosophers and theologians and such say there's things in the world that's every bit as real even though you can't see them."

Like what?" Dunbar asked.

Well," Snipes said. "They's love, that's one. And courage. You can't see neither of them, but they're real. And air, of course. That's one of your most important examples. You wouldn't be alive a minute if there wasn't air, but nobody's ever seen a single speck of it."

… "All I'm saying is there is a lot more to this old world than meets the eye."

… "And darkness. You can't see it no more than you can see air, but when its all around you sure enough know it." (Serena, 65-66) ~ Ron Rash

The final option to have your book completed is to hire a ghost writer. The challenge with this option is that it is important to note that your voice IS an integral part of your branding. When you hire someone else, what your readers will ultimately get is their voice. When they see you later at your website or on your social media, your voice will not be the same. This will trigger a feeling of inconsistency when relationships need to be built upon trust and authenticity. Your audience will eventually come to think you are not the "real deal" and will find another to replace you. Finally, your book is a springboard and launching pad to greater things such as speaking, interviews, a product line, etc. Will your ghost writer be available for all of that as well? How will you be able to "ghost write" your way through an interview? Hence the reason I stress speaking in your own voice. You may think you are not perfect, but your authenticity will speak in volumes to your followers and they will be customers for life if they see your true being. ~ Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

These times are hard, but I won't walk away jaded, darker, different. I feel. I cry to heal. If you saw me in those moments, maybe you'd think I was a mess. But I don't call it a mess. I call it strength.

Real strength isn't about building walls. Real strength is about staying open, no matter what. It's about taking life - with all the pleasures that fade and all the pain that sticks around for too long - and not shutting down, not closing down, not building up those walls.

Resilience isn't hard, impenetrable, iron. Resilience is flexible, soft, warm.

Stay strong. The real kind of strong. Don't let your automatic mind reflexes make you jump away from pain and towards pleasure. Make choices. See clearly. And never, ever, stop feeling.

Don't go numb. The world, even with all its horror, is too beautiful to miss. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

You've passed like three stores that sell batteries," she says. "We need to get one now in case it's too late on our way back."

"You don't need a battery. Your battery is fine," I say.
I avoid looking over at her but I can see her watching me, waiting for more explanation.

I don't immediately respond. I flick the blinker on and turn onto my grandparent's street. When I pull into their driveway, I turn the car off and tell her the truth. What harm could it do at this point?

"I unhooked your battery cable before you tried to leave today." I don't wait for her reaction as I get out of the car and slam the door. I'm not sure why I slam the car door. I'm not mad at her, I'm just frustrated. Frustrated that she doubts me after all this time.

"You what!?" she yells. When she gets out of the car, she slams her door intentionally.

I keep walking, shielding the wind and snow with my jacket until I reach the front door. She rushes after me. I almost walk inside without knocking but remember how it feels, so I knock.

"I said I unhooked your battery cable. How else was I going to convince you to ride with me?"

"That's real mature, Will. ~ Colleen Hoover

Don't be their friend, be their parent!", they say. Hmm...yea, fuck that advice. To each their own, but I pretty much think that's the worst advice you could offer. I know far too many teens who come talk to me about their REAL life because they can't talk to their parents. We are headed into preteen years and I want my girls to be able to talk to me about what's really going on with them. I don't want them to be scared to talk to me for fear that I will be angry or disappointed. People tell me that I'll regret this and that it will bite me in the ass someday. I'll take my chances. The way I see it is: You can't scare someone into changing, you'll just scare them enough that they learn how to pretend. They will put on a mask and they may never find the courage to take it off. I've been telling them they could trust me since they were born; not with my words, but with my actions. One reaction at a time, letting them know that I'm not scared of who they are. I share my opinions and I give advice when the time is right, but mostly I'm here to hold space for them while they find their way in this world. I'm not worried about my kids appearing perfect, I'm worried about them being one person in front of me and an entirely different person when I'm not around. I choose to be their friend and get to know them as they are, not as I want them to be. ~ Brooke Hampton

It was a "Come As Your Childhood Ambition" theme party. You know: vets, pilots, ballet
dancers…I really did always want to be a librarian.'
'You're actually just a big dork, aren't you?' he says.
'A big sexy dork,' I correct him, taking a sip of my drink. 'And that's MISS Big Sexy Dork to
you.' (Oh, hush. I know it's obvious flirting. It just came out.)
'Cocky. So cocky,' he says, shaking his head.
I'm not sure what to say to this. Cocky is certainly not how I'd describe myself.
'See? You're not even bothering to reply. Cocky. Fine, I'll talk. Even though you haven't asked
me, I would have come as a dog. I thought I was a dog, actually, till I was five. I would only eat froma bowl on the floor next to our real dog, Scooby, and I wee-ed against trees whenever I could. ~ Gemma Burgess

Real loved one's aren't afraid, and will suggest to
you, what's in your best interest ... because they wouldn't want too see you suffer the consequences of your, sideways, emotional impulse(s). To see you crash and burn is the gratification of [the] 'yes folk' lurking in your corner. You may not agree, but always consider the voice(s) that have consistently kept it real. ~ T.F. Hodge

If you understand what holiness is, you come to see that real happiness is on the far side of holiness, not the near side. ~ Timothy Keller

You see the same God that you saying might not even exist
Becomes real to us, but only when we dying in bed
When ya healthy it's like, we don't really care for Him then
Leave me alone God, I'll call you when I need you again
Which is funny, everyone will sleep in the pews
Then blame God for our problems like He sleeping on you
We turn our backs on Him, what do you expect Him to do?
It's hard to answer prayers when nobody's praying to you ~ Nathan Feuerstein (NF)

Vision, even for a dragon, is woefully unreliable. What you can see with great clarity may not be real; what you cannot see may be the ultimate reality. ~ T.A. Barron

The room where they were dancing was very dark.... It was queer to be in his arms.... She had known better dancers.... He had looked ill.... Perhaps he was.... Oh, poor Valentine-Elisabeth.... What a funny position!.... The good gramophone played.... Destiny!.... You see, father! ... In his arms! Of course, dancing is not really.... But so near the real thing! So near!... 'Good luck to the special intention!...' She had almost kissed him on the lips ... All but!... Effleurer, the French call it.... But she was not as humble.... He had pressed her tighter.... All these months without.... My lord did me honour.... Good for Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre.... He knew she had almost kissed him on the lips.... And that his lips had almost responded.... The civilian, the novelist, had turned out the last light.... Tietjens said, 'Hadn't we better talk?...' She said: 'In my room, then! I'm dog-tired.... I haven't slept for six nights.... In spite of drugs...' He said: 'Yes. Of course! Where else?.... ~ Ford Madox Ford

If I take a chamois and rub real hard on the bone, right on the ledge of your cheek bone, some of the black will disappear. It will flake away into the chamois and underneath there will be gold leaf. I can see it shining through the black. I know it is there…
[...] And if I take a nailfile or even Eva's old paring knife - that will do - and scrape away at the gold, it will fall away, it will fall away and there will be alabaster. The alabaster is what gives your face its planes, its curves. That is why your mouth smiling does not reach your eyes. Alabaster is giving it a gravity that resists a total smile.


[...] Then I can take a chisel and small tap hammer and tap away at the alabaster. It will crack then like ice under the pick, and through the breaks I will see the loam, fertile, free of pebbles and twigs. For it is the loam that is giving you that smell. ~ Toni Morrison

This is another thing I think of, turning it over, try to put together two pictures of it, but this time it's about me, it's myself I'm trying to figure. Because one sounds so disgusting, not even able to tell Al about it, win the big game, take the virgin to her first bonfire, feed her a beer or two, and then the two of us in someone's car with your hand between my legs, unbuttoned and hiked down and the noises I made, before I finally, gasping, stopped you. It sounds terrible and it's probably the truth, the real picture, gross when I write it down and shamed about it. But it's the real, whole truth I'm trying to get down, how it happened, and honestly it felt different then, different from that bad picture. I can see it, so gentle the way you moved, the thrill that was there with us as no one knew where we were or what we were doing. ~ Daniel Handler

Time does not heal wounds. It's a body's ritual that does. The instinctual cleansing with rain or other waters, the application of salves. Despite the sting. Even neglected, the body begins to take care. To repair itself. Blood clots, tissues regenerate, flesh scars. Soon, the thin white line is the only evidence of the pain. It is the body, not time. Time does nothing except create distance between the body and that which caused it harm.
Recollection of fear can be stronger than the original fear itself. Similarly, bliss is sometimes more vivid when recollected. How else do you explain longing? Longing for what has already passed. That's the real pain.
But you insisted, you pried with your fingers to see. You retuned to me after I turned away. You made me recollect for you, collect again and again for you, inturrupting the healing with your curiosity.
Now that I have given you the words, you may long for them. You may miss me. YOu may try to find the notes to the song again and again and won't be able to find them. Perhaps, the wounds I made will already have begun to scar. Maybe the body will have begun its ritual of forgetting.
I told you not to ask for haunted, not to ask me to recollect. Because recollection is like tearing at closed wounds. Like pealing back the careful tissue put there by the body to make it safe. And because remembered pain is always worse than the original pain, because this time it is expected. This time you already know how ~ T. Greenwood

For that matter, men are perhaps indifferent to power ... What fascinates them in this idea, you see, is not real power, it's the illusion of being able to do exactly as they please. The king's power is the power to govern, isn't it? But man has no urge to govern
he has an urge to compel, as you said. To be more than a man, in a world of men. To escape man's fate, I was saying. Not powerful
all-powerful. The visionary disease, of which the will to power is only the intellectual justification, is the will to god-head
every man dreams of being god. ~ Andre Malraux

You know what I think is better than being cool, is being happy and you seem really happy tonight Sydney. You know, when somebody criticizes you, or says something behind your back, those words that they said about you, it's like you feel like those words are written all over your face, all over you. And then, those words start to become echoes in your own mind. And then, there's a real risk that those words could become a part of how you see yourself. The moment that you realize that you are NOT the opinion of somebody who doesn't know you or care about you, that moment, when you realize that, it's like you're Clean. ~ Taylor Swift

Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love you some much that I don't care whether I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, 'No toffee now. But when you've grown up and don't really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose'?

If I knew that to be eternally divided from H. and eternally forgotten by her would add a greater joy and splendour to her being, of course I'd say 'Fire ahead.' Just as if, on earth, I could have cured her cancer by never seeing her again, I'd have arranged never to see her again. I'd have had to. Any decent person would. But that's quite different. That's not the situation I'm in.

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. ~ C.S. Lewis

A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life. ~ Richard Ford

Wow. I didn't think I'd ever see you like that."
Cam trembled; he couldn't help it. He felt like his body was not his own. "Like what?"
"So..." Sasha seemed to search for the right word. "Involved, maybe? On-screen, you all seem kinda cold. I guess I figured you'd done it all before."
Cam took a moment to gather himself. A phrase came to him, and he allowed himself a wry grin. "It's not the same. That's work, even if it's one of my friends. This is real sex. ~ Garrett Leigh

I beg young people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you're going to see your country differently, you're going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You're going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It's not what Tom Friedman writes about; I'm sorry. You're going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can't get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people - Americans and Europeans - come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on. ~ Henry Rollins

Was I (am I not still?) a victim of words and books merely, and are books just an excuse for living, living things out in parenthesis, even in the most desolate stony place as I was, quotations and misquotations raining down on me thick and fast – words, words, words – the multitude of words, a parody of rain? For after all, as old Mrs Feany said, the rain is healthy. And the rain it raineth everyday. But the stuff of books and solitude and spying on the poor, could they be healthy? Or were my doubts the real heresy and treason? What book ever changed the world? It seems a solipsism to say that what changes the way we see the world, changes the world, but it is not. Where do you want me to begin? The Bible, Das Kapital? The Divine Comedy, The Satanic Verses? ~ Andrew McNeillie

It's like my grandpa always used to say, 'A butter knife would make a deadlier weapon than a melting stick of butter.'"


"Your grandpa never said that."


"No, but he should have. He was a damn fool not to have uttered those words."


"My grandpa was a janitor, in the Great Depression. The greatest thing he ever said was, 'Greg, I just Gregged all over your floor. Do you have a mop I can use to clean it up?'"


"Who's Greg?"


"I don't know."


"What the shit kind of story is that? That story is bullshit. Greg doesn't exist. Nobody knows nobody named Greg. It's a unicorn name - it's complete mythology."


"What about Lou Greg, the baseball player?"


"Lou who? Lou Gehrig?"


"Here's a Lou for you. Greg Louganis."


"Bah, Greg Louganis doesn't exist. He was a myth created by the Soviets to push their divers to perfection. The Russians realized they couldn't be the best until they deceived their divers into believing there was someone who was always better."


"I've seen Greg Louganis, and he's as real as you or me."


"You've seen what they wanted you to see. They gave you a blindfold to wear and convinced you it would improve your eyesight." ~ Jarod Kintz

I've heard youngsters use some of George Lucas' terms––"the Force and "the dark side." So it must be hitting somewhere. It's a good sound teaching, I would say.

The fact that the evil power is not identified with any specific nation on this earth means you've got an abstract power, which represents a principle, not a specific historical situation. The story has to do with an operation of principles, not of this nation against that. The monster masks that are put on people in Star Wars represent the real monster force in the modern world. When the mask of Darth Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not developed as a human individual. What you see is a strange and pitiful sort of undifferentiated face.

Darth Vader has not developed his humanity. He's a robot. He's a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it? . . . The thing to do is to learn to live in your period of history as a human being ...[b]y holding to your own ideals for yourself and, like Luke Skywalker, rejecting the system's impersonal claims upon you.

Well, you see, that movie communicates. It is in a language that talks to young people, and that's what ~ Joseph Campbell

Jamie used the time away from me to do some soul-searching. She finally also did something she'd thought about for a long time. She walked into an Army recruitment office in Nashville and joined the military. She didn't discuss it with me beforehand. Instead she called and said, "I'm joining the Army. It's active duty and I'm going to be a truck driver with an airborne contract." Shocked, I blurted out, "You're going to do what? No you're not."
"What do you mean? I'm gonna be a truck driver in a convoy." I knew she was referring to a seventies country song she likes. Only this wasn't a country song, this was real life.
"Are you crazy? This is not a game. You will hate being a truck driver. You don't even know if you'll like being in the military. Go National Guard or Reserves and see if you like it."
"They said I'm already in. Basic is not for another few months but I'm in and I can't change it."
"Yes you can. You are not in yet. You are not in the military. That was just a recruiter telling you that. Why aren't you going in as an officer? You have a degree. You can make more money."
She seemed annoyed that I was raining on her parade, but I think it was also dawning on her that maybe I was right and she hadn't done the research.
"They told me that it's not really that much more."
I explained to her, "They are lying to you. It is a lot more."
I had no problem with her joining the military. If that's what she wanted to do, I supported it ~ Noah Galloway

The Occupied Territories; you think there is absolutely no way you can get to it. Do you see how close it is? How touchable? How real?

When the eye sees it, it has all the clarify of earth and pebbles and hills and rocks. It has its colours and its temperatures and its wild plants too.

Who would dare to make it into an abstraction now that it has declared its physical self to the senses?

It is no longer 'the beloved' in the poetry of resistance, or an item on a political party program, and it is not an argument or a metaphor. It stretches before me, as touchable as a scorpion, a bird, a well; visible as a field of chalk, as the prints of shoes.

I asked myself, what is so special about it except that we have lost it? It is a land, like any land.

We sing for it only so that we may remember the humiliation of having had it taken from us. Our song is not for some sacred thing of the past but for our current self-respect that is violated anew every day by the Occupation. ~ Mourid Barghouti

Mason, I'm ruined. I can never give you what you deserve. I'm incapable of loving someone like - like you want. I will never be able to do it right. I will never deserve to be loved."

My breathing is erratic. I shove myself to my knees and grasp her arms, pulling her toward me once again. "Sometimes never is a distorted perception. I love you, Hope. And I'm not the only one. I know you care about me. I see it in your eyes. I feel it. Everybody needs love. Everybody. And some people need it more than others. You're a liar if you say you don't. I'll do that for you. I'll love you. All you have to do is let me."

The wind whispers against my back as if giving me a nudge toward her and I take it as a sign. I propel myself into her, pushing my bare skin to hers. I need to feel her. I need her to feel me.

This is real. ~ Cheryl McIntyre

The Defendant: I am pleading guilty your honors but I'm doing it because I think it would be a waste of money to have a trial over five dollars worth of crack. What I really need is a drug program because I want to turn my life around and the only reason I was doing what I was doing on the street was to support my habit. The habit has to be fed your honors as you know and I believe in working for my money. I could be out there robbing people but I'm not and I've always worked even though I am disabled. And not always at this your honors, I used to be a mail carrier back in the day but then I started using drugs and that was all I wanted to do. So I'm taking this plea to save the city of New York and the taxpayers money because I can't believe that the DA, who I can see is a very tall man, would take to trial a case involving five dollars worth of crack, especially knowing how much a trial of that nature would cost. But I still think that I should get a chance to do a drug program because I've never been given that chance in any of my cases and the money that will be spent keeping me in jail could be spent addressing my real problem which is that I like, no need, to smoke crack every day and every chance I get, and if I have to point people to somebody who's selling the stuff so I can get one dollar and eventually save up enough to buy a vial then smoke it immediately and start saving up for my next one that I'll gladly do that, and I'll do it even though I know it could land ~ Sergio De La Pava

As for Iago's jealousy, one cannot believe that a seriously jealous man could behave towards his wife as Iago behaves towards Emilia, for the wife of a jealous husband is the first person to suffer. Not only is the relation of Iago and Emilia, as we see it on stage, without emotional tension, but also Emilia openly refers to a rumor of her infidelity as something already disposed of.

Some such squire it was
That turned your wit, the seamy side without
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

At one point Iago states that, in order to revenge himself on Othello, he will not rest till he is even with him, wife for wife, but, in the play, no attempt at Desdemona's seduction is made. Iago does not encourage Cassio to make one, and he even prevents Roderigo from getting anywhere near her.

Finally, one who seriously desires personal revenge desires to reveal himself. The revenger's greatest satisfaction is to be able to tell his victim to his face – "You thought you were all-powerful and untouchable and could injure me with impunity. Now you see that you were wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten what you did; let me have the pleasure of reminding you."

When at the end of the play, Othello asks Iago in bewilderment why he has thus ensnared his soul and body, if his real motive were revenge for having been cuckolded or unjustly denied promotion, he could have said so, instead of refusing to explain. ~ W.H. Auden

Sometimes what you see is not real, and the reality is not what you see. Somewhere between both these reasoning resides a fact: where there is a lack of trust and confidence, perception will always differ with reality. ~ Ashish Patel

It's not like that," Georgie said. "You'll see. It's more like you meet someone, and you fall in love, and you hope that that person is the one – and then at some point, you have to put down your chips. You just have to make a commitment and hope that you're right."
"No one else describes love that way." Heather frowned. "Maybe you're doing it wrong."
"Obviously I'm doing it wrong," Georgie said. "But I still think love feels that way for most people."
"So you think most people bet everything, their whole lives, on hope. Just hoping that what they're feeling is real."
"Real isn't relevant," Georgie said, turning completely to face Heather. "It's like... you're tossing a ball between you, and you're just hoping you can keep it in the air. And it has nothing to do with whether you love each other or not. If you didn't love each other, you wouldn't be playing this stupid game with the ball. You love each other – and you just hope you can keep the ball in play. ~ Rainbow Rowell

He was beautiful.
Whatever else he was, Sage was by far the most magnetic man I had ever seen. I had felt it in my dreams, and it was even more true in real life. I welcomed the chance to study him without his knowledge.
He glanced up, and I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Had he seen me? The scratching stopped. He was looking at me, I knew it. I held my breath and willed my eyes not to pop open and see if he was staring.
Finally the scratching started up again. I forced myself to slowly count to ten before I opened my eyelids the tiniest bit and peeked through my lashes.
Good-he wasn't looking at me.
I opened my eyes a little wider. What was he doing? Moving only my eyes, I glanced down at the dirt floor in front of him…
…and saw a picture of me, fast asleep.
It was incredible. I could see his tools laid out beside the picture: rocks in several sizes and shapes, a couple of twigs…the most rudimentary materials, and yet what he was etching into the floor wouldn't look out of place on an art gallery wall. It was beautiful…far more beautiful than I thought I actually looked in my sleep. Is that how he saw me?
Sage lifted his head again, and I shut my eyes. I imagined him studying me, taking careful note of my features and filtering them through his own senses. My heartbeat quickened, and it took all my willpower to remain still.
"You can keep pretending to be asleep if you'd like, but I don't see a career for you as an actres ~ Hilary Duff

I must tell you that what you see tonight is completely real. It might not be amazing, it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is real. For that – I am deeply sorry. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The cemetery watchman left the room and returned with a tray holding three small skulls and a large one. I could feel the short hairs on the back of my neck standing up of their own accord. None of them were real though; they were wood or celluloid imitations. They all had flaps that opened at the top; one was a jug and the other three steins.

The man behind the desk named the toast. 'To our Friend!' I thought he meant myself at first; he meant that shadowy enemy of all mankind, the Grim Reaper.

'We are called The Friends of Death,' he explained to me when the grisly containers had been emptied. 'To outline our creed and purpose briefly, it is this: That death is life, and life is death. We have mastered death, and no member of the Friends of Death need ever fear it. They 'die,' it is true, but after death they are buried in special graves in our private cemetery - graves having air vents, such as you discovered. Also, our graves are equipped with electric signals, so that after the bodies of our buried members begin to respond to the secret treatment our scientists have given them before internment, we are warned. Then we come and release them - and they live again. Moreover, they are released, freed of their thralldom; from then on death is an old familiar friend instead of an enemy. They no longer fear it. Do you not see what a wonderful boon this would be in your case, Brother Bud; you who have suffered so from that fear?' ("Graves For The Living") ~ Cornell Woolrich

I am interested in shows that are not out-and-out gag fests: you see the truth of a broken heart behind them. That is what life is like: it's really funny, you see funny things as soon as you step out of the room, but underneath that is a whole bag of broken hearts. It's that real pain and that real hilarity that makes life so intriguing. ~ Tamsin Greig

RubyMars: Have you heard anything else about when you're leaving for good?

AHall80: Not yet, but everything seems to be on schedule. Should be about 8 weeks. The longest 8 weeks of my life.

RubyMars: I'm sure.

AHall80: I want a shitty, greasy, deep dish pizza like you can't imagine. I can already taste it.

AHall80: A hot shower… a real bed… AC everywhere…

RubyMars: Clean clothes?

AHall80: Clean clothes. Clean socks. No sand.

RubyMars: Clean underwear.

RubyMars: No sand? I thought you were planning on going to the beach?

AHall80: The beach is different. There's water. It isn't just desert and more desert.

RubyMars: I guess that makes sense.

RubyMars: My brother said once that his goal is to never see sand in his life again.

AHall80: For real.

RubyMars: What I didn't finish saying was that he said that, but he's gone to Cancun twice with his boyfriend, LOL.

AHall80: It's different. I'm over this sand shit.

AHall80: Never again

RubyMars: Does that mean you're dead set on not re-enlisting?

AHall80: …

RubyMars: Whatever you want. I'm not judging. We don't have to talk about it.

AHall80: It's not that I don't want to talk about it…

RubyMars: But you don't want to talk about it.

AHall80: :] Basically.

RubyMars: I'll change the subject then.
Mariana Zapata

I believe I was afraid…of not being worthy of you. I have spent weeks writing, scribbling my thoughts, reliving every moment we shared, and I saw…the happiness we shared when we were together. The gleam in your dark eyes when you saw me. And I realized…that is what it's about, is it not? Those pieces of happiness are what matters. Not title or name. I write stories and poems of love and dreams coming true, but I did not allow myself to see it as something that could be real…not for me…but it was true…what we shared, and not only am I better for it, the world could be too."
"I am a better man because of you, Cas. Imagine what we could do together?"
Cassius gasped…hoped. "Do you still want me, my prince?"
"I have never wanted another the way I want you. There will never be another I love the way I love you."
Merrick raised his hand, cupped Cassius's cheek. Cas nuzzled into him, closed his eyes, trembled when he felt Merrick's lips touch his. They kissed slowly, deeply, reexploring each other.
Cassius swallowed down Merrick's moans and then fed him his own.
And it was…perfect.
When they pulled apart, Cassius led Merrick back to the rock. The sun kept the chill off as they climbed on together ~ Riley Hart

Can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?" Harry shook his head.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help."
Harry thought. Then he said slowly, "It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."
"Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly.
"It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

"The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed. ~ J.K. Rowling

This is the real drama for me; the belief that we all, you see, think of ourselves as one single person: but it's not true: each of us is several different people, and all these people live inside us. With one person we seem like this and with another we seem very different. But we always have the illusion of being the same person for everybody and of always being the same person in everything we do. But it's not true! It's not true! We find this out for ourselves very clearly when by some terrible chance we're suddenly stopped in the middle of doing something and we're left dangling there, suspended. We realize then, that every part of us was not involved in what we'd been doing and that it would be a dreadful injustice of other people to judge us only by this one action as we dangle there, hanging in chains, fixed for all eternity, as if the whole of one's personality were summed up in that single, interrupted action. ~ Luigi Pirandello

What do think about abortion?"
"I could feel the tension growing in the plane. I dropped my head, acknowledging that we had very different value systems for our lives. Then I thought of a way to respond to his question.
"You're Jewish, right?" I asked.
"Yes," he said defensively. "I told you I was!"
"Do you know how Hitler persuaded the German people to destroy more than six million of your Jewish ancestors?" The man looked at me expectantly, so I continued. "He convinced them that Jews were not human and then exterminated your people like rats."
I could see that I had his attention, so I went on. "Do you understand how Americans enslaved, tortured, and killed millions of Africans? We dehumanized them so our constitution didn't apply to them, and then we treated them worse than animals."
"How about the Native Americans?" I pressed. "Do you have any idea how we managed to hunt Indians like wild animals, drive them out of their own land, burn their villages, rape their women, and slaughter their children? Do you have any clue how everyday people turned into cruel murderers?"
My Jewish friend was silent, and his eyes were filling with tears as I made my point. "We made people believe that the Native Americans were wild savages, not real human beings, and then we brutalized them without any conviction of wrongdoing! Now do you understand how we have persuaded mothers to kill their own babies? We took the word fetus, which is the Latin word for ~ Kris Vallotton

Look,let me give you the CliffNotes: You're a bitch in this life and Daniel doesn't care.Shocker! He courts you for a few weeks,there's some exchanging of flowers.A big kiss and then kaboom. Okay? Not much more to see."
"You don't understand."
"What? I don't understand that Victorians are as stuffy as an attic and as boring as watching wallpaper peel? Come on,if you're going to zigzag through your past,make it count. Let's hit some highlights.
Luce didn't budge. "Is there a way to make you disappear?"
"Do I have to stuff you in this Announcer like a cat in a suitcase? Let's move!"
"I need to see that he loves me, not just some idea of me because of some curse that he's bound to.I need to feel like there's something stronger keeping us together. Something real."
Bill took a seat next to Luce on the grass. Then he seemed to think better of it and actually crawled onto her lap. At first,she wanted to swat him, and the flies buzzing around his head,but when he looked up at her,his eyes appeared sincere.
"Honey,Daniel loving the real you is the last thing you should be worried about. You're freaking soul mates. You two coined the phrase. You don't have to stick around here to see that.It's in every life. ~ Lauren Kate

Could someone have hated him enough to kill?" asked Gamache.

"There are a lot of reasons for murder, Chief Inspector, as you know."

"Actually, mon Père, I've found there's only one. Beneath all the justifications, all the psychology, all the motives given, like revenge or greed or jealousy, there lies the real reason."

"And what's that?"

"Fear. Fear of losing what you have or not getting what you want."

"And yet, fear of damnation doesn't stop them."

"No. Neither does fear of getting caught. Because they don't believe in either."

"You think it's not possible to believe in God and commit murder?

The priest was staring at Gamache now, his face relaxed, amused even. His eyes calm, his voice light. Then why was he clutching his cassock in his fist?

"Depends on the God you believe in," said Gamache.

"There is only one God, Chief Inspector."

"Perhaps, but all sorts of humans who see imperfectly. Even God. Especially God. ~ Louise Penny

What happens if you lose?" Jeremy pressed.
"I don't see it as winning or losing. I'm just looking for a middle ground," he [Justin] said. "I get that technology is convenient and has its benefits. We definitely can't live without it. We can't go back to living in caves. But most people are so plugged in, they're not even living in the real world. Our lives aren't grounded by anything. Being too dependent on something makes you a slave to it. And I sure as hell won't worship a digital screen. So I'm looking for a halfway point. A balance. It's not just about ending digital school. It's about having a choice. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

In the beginning of a relationship, you see what you want to see. You fall in love with qualities you want in partner, not necessarily qualities your partner actually has. Then, over time, you begin to realise that no, the man in front of you is not the same person you felt in love with, because the person you felt in love with was a spectre, something of your own invention. Now you're left with a real flesh-and-blood human, and he isn't perfect, and now you have to deal with that. It's a stark time. It's not easy to come to grips with these things, but you can't go your whole life pretending this man is everything you built him up to be in your mind. ~ G.R. Richards

I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She's a child now - a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see."

"And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?"

"Yes - yes - oh; yes!"

"How so? Do you want to make out that you love them BOTH?"

"Yes - yes - both! I do!"

"Excuse me, prince, but think what you are saying! Recollect yourself!"

"Without Aglaya - I - I MUST see Aglaya! - I shall die in my sleep very soon - I thought I was dying in my sleep last night. Oh! if Aglaya only knew all - I mean really, REALLY all! Because she must know ALL - that's the first condition towards understanding. Why cannot we ever know all about another, especially when that other has been guilty? But I don't know what I'm talking about - I'm so confused. You pained me so dreadfully. Surely - surely Aglaya has not the same expression now as she had at the moment when she ran away? Oh, yes! I am guilty and I know it - I know it! Probably I am in fault all round - I don't quite know how - but I am in fault, no doubt. There is something else, but I cannot explain it to you, Evgenie Pavlovitch. I have no words; but Aglaya will understand. I have always believed Aglaya will understand - I am assured she will."

"No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most p ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Loving yourself isn't just about celebrating your accomplishments and nurturing your talents. Those things are nice, sure. But that's not how we know others love us. We know others love us when they see us with our face on the ground, crying and weak, feeling like we've got nothing to offer the world - and they smile, and they reach out, and they love us anyway. Loving yourself is what you do when you fail, when you don't know, when you screw up, when you forget, when you lose everything. Loving yourself is what you do when you can't approve of what you've done. Loving yourself is what you do when you're not sure if it's going to get better. Loving yourself is what you must do in those moments when you can't like yourself. Real love is when you reach out for no good reason at all, except to love. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

What if I can't do this, Gregori?" She sounded close to tears. "What if I can never do this?"
"No one is making you do anything, ma petite," he replied gently, kissing her stomach. "We are just exploring possibilites."
"But,Gregori," she tried to protest, attempting to bring his head back up so that he could see her very real fear for him, for their life together.
"If I cannot persaude you otherwise, mon amour, I am not much of a lifemate, now am I?" The words were muffled in the tight silky curls, the intriguing little triangle at the apex of her thighs.
"You don't understand,Gregori." Savannah closed her eyes against the waves of fire racing through her. "It's me who is no real lifemate.I don't know how to please you, and I'm so afraid of this."
"Relax,bebe." He breathed warm air against her, inhaled her scent. "You please me far more than you will ever know. ~ Christine Feehan

There is a curious comfort in letting go. After the agony, letting go brings numbness, and after the numbness, clarity. As if I can see the world for the first time, and my place in it, independent of you, a whole vista of what may be. Even if it is not grand or inspiring, it is real and solid, unlike the fantasy I've built around you. I will do this.
I will triumph over you. ~ Julie Berry

When you see what is not real, this laughter comes ~ Mooji

See what your misery is, what desires are causing it, and why you are clinging to those desires. And it is not for the first time that you are clinging to those desires; this has been the pattern of your whole life and you have not arrived anywhere. You go on in circles, you never come to any real growth. You remain childish, stupid. And you are born with the intelligence that can make you a buddha, but it is lost in unnecessary things. ~ Rajneesh

It saddens me to see girls proudly declaring they're not like other girls – especially when it's 41,000 girls saying it in a chorus, never recognizing the contradiction. It's taking a form of contempt for women – even a hatred for women – and internalizing it by saying, Yes, those girls are awful, but I'm special, I'm not like that, instead of stepping back and saying, This is a lie.

The real meaning of "I'm not like the other girls" is, I think, "I'm not the media's image of what girls should be." Well, very, very few of us are. Pop culture wants to tell us that we're all shallow, backstabbing, appearance-obsessed shopaholics without a thought in our heads beyond cute boys and cuter handbags. It's a lie – a flat-out lie – and we need to recognize it and say so instead of accepting that judgment as true for other girls, but not for you. ~ Claudia Gray

in simple terms, what you perceive as real, is actually a neurological reconstruction or simulation of the actual real thing. It's not as simple as saying, we see as it is. Actually we do not ever see as it is. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We underestimate the power of science, and overestimate the power of personal observation. A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes. Our own eyes can deceive us. People can fool themselves, hallucinate, and even go insane. The controls on publication in major journals are more trustworthy than the very fabric of your brain. If you see with your own eyes that the sky is blue, and Science says it is green, then sir, I advise that you trust in Science.
This is not what most scientists will tell you, of course; but I think it is pragmatically true. Because in real life, what happens is that your eyes have a little malfunction and decide that the sky is green, and science will tell you that the sky is blue. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

He sees me based on what I can do for him, not who I am. He has an image of me and he doesn't want to see beneath the image. You can't be with a man who is unwilling or unable to see the real you. ~ Cathy Lamb

He motions to the glue brush. "Can I have some?"
I start to grab it so I can pass it to him. He reaches for it at the same time. Our fingers touch, and the moment they do the fluorescent lights overhead flicker and then fizzle out.
Everyone moans, even though we can all still see. There's enough light from the outside filtering in, just not enough for us to really focus on the finer details.
Nick's fingers stroke mine lightly, so lightly that I'm almost not sure the touch is real. My insides flicker like the art room lights. They do not, however, fizzle. I turn my head to look him in the eye.
He leans over and whispers, "It will be hard to be just your friend."
The lights come back on.
"Just a little brownout." The art teacher smiles and holds out her arms. "Welcome to Maine, Zara. Land of a million power failures."
Nick's breath touches my ear. "I heard you didn't drive to school. I'll bring you home after cross-country,okay?"
"Okay," I say, trying to be all calm, but what I really want to do is leap up and do a happy dance all over the art room. Nick is driving me home. ~ Carrie Jones

Cat Rambo: Where do you think the perennial debate between what is literary fiction and what is genre is sited?

Norman Spinrad: I think it's a load of crap. See my latest column in Asimov's, particularly re The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I detest the whole concept of genre. A piece of fiction is either a good story well told or it isn't. The supposed dichotomy between "literary fiction" and "popular fiction" is ridiculous. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Mailer, did not have serious literary intent? As writers of serious literary intent, they didn't want to be "popular," meaning sell a lot of books? They wanted to be unpopular and have terrible sales figures to prove they were "serious"?

I say this is bullshit and I say the hell with it. "Genre," if it means anything at all, is a restrictive commercial requirement. "Westerns" must be set in the Old West. "Mysteries" must have a detective solving a crime, usually murder. "Nurse Novels" must have a nurse. And so forth.

In the strictly literary sense, neither science fiction nor fantasy are "genres." They are anti-genres. They can be set anywhere and anywhen except in the mimetic here and now or a real historical period. They are the liberation of fiction from the constraints of "genre" in an absolute literary sense. ~ Norman Spinrad

The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being exclude ~ Bill Hicks

But veteran lawmakers torn apart by PTSD don't have a choice about being Exhibit A in the case against Washington politics. When you see what can happen to a page or a junior congressman, it passes on in a very real way, not in a history-class sense, that reality of what political power really is, .. Who are we to impose this emotional albatross on public servants? As a nation, we pretend to elect our leaders. It seems unjust to make them a special class to suffer for our sins over wrongheaded laws, or pay a continuing emotional price for securing their future careers. ~ Leon Kass

In a relationship where awareness is expanding, both people evolve together. Instead of projecting, they view the other person as a mirror of themselves. This is the basis of a spiritual relationship, where you can unfold your true self and relate from that level, see the other person as a soul equal to you, base your happiness on being real, not on illusions and expectations, use intimacy to evolve and grow, get past victimization by taking responsibility for your half of the relationship, ask what you can give before demanding what you can get. ~ Deepak Chopra

It's just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me. ~ Haruki Murakami

What is going to happen to the Aurorans?"
"They are prisoners of war," Albion said. "I should imagine they will be set to work at the base of the Spire."
Grimm tightened his jaw. "No, sir."
"No?"
"No, sir," Grimm said. "I've seen that place. You might as well tie a noose around their necks and stand them on blocks of ice, if you want them to die a slow death. It will be cleaner."
"I'm not sure why this concerns you, Captain," Albion said.
"Because they surrendered to me," Grimm said. "They gave me their parole, sir. They could have fought on with no real chance of victory, and it would have been bloody. But that surrender saved blood and lives of Albions and Aurorans alike. I will not see Captain Castillo repaid with such churlish treatment. ~ Jim Butcher

You see," the tourist went on, "you know that thing you do with seaweed?"
Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had decided she didn't like it. She looked blank.
"Eat it?"
"No, what you do is, you hang it up outside your door, and it tells you if it's going to rain."
Another thing Bethan had learned was that there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on it as it turned a corner.
"I see," she said.
"Rincewind is like that, you see."
"Like seaweed."
"Yes. If there was anything at all to be frightened about, he'd be frightened. But he's not. The star is just about the only thing I've ever seen him not frightened of. If he's not worried, then take it from me, there's nothing to be worried about."
"It's not going to rain?" said Bethan.
"Well, no, metaphorically speaking."
"Oh." Bethan decided not to ask what "metaphorically" meant, in case it had something to do with seaweed. ~ Terry Pratchett

Not exactly. I see a girl who wants to present someone special to the world. Someone beautiful. The pinnacle of beauty. But she has lost her hold on reality. Real beauty isn't thin. It isn't size two, unless you happen to be four foot ten. What the world sees when they look at you is someone who believes self-worth is all about how she looks, and that very often means that what she's missing is love. Not someone else's love. But love and respect for herself. ~ Ellen Hopkins

Wandering around back stage at a willie Nelson concert is a bit like being the parrot on the shoulder of the guy who's running the Ferris wheel. It's not the best seat in the house, but you see enough lights, action, people, and confusion to make you wonder if anybody knows what the hell's going on. If you're sitting out front, of course, it all rolls along as smoothly as a German train schedule, but as Willie, like any great magician, would be the first to point out, the real show is never in the center ring. As Willie always says, Fortunately, we're not in control. ~ Kinky Friedman

I select the right practice gun, the one about the size of a pistol, but bulkier, and offer it to Caleb.
Tris's fingers slide between mine. Everything comes easily this morning, every smile and every laugh, every word and every motion.
If we succeed in what we attempt tonight, tomorrow Chicago will be safe, the Bureau will be forever changed, and Tris and I will be able to build a new life for ourselves somewhere. Maybe it will even be a place where I trade my guns and knives for more productive tools, screwdrivers and nails and shovels. This morning I feel like I could be so fortunate. I could.
"It doesn't shoot real bullets," I say, "but it seems like they designed it so it would be as close as possible to one of the guns you'll be using. It feels real, anyway."
Caleb holds the gun with just his fingertips, like he's afraid it will shatter in his hands.
I laugh. "First lesson: Don't be afraid of it. Grab it. You've held one before, remember? You got us out of the Amity compound with that shot."
"That was just lucky," Caleb says, turning the gun over and over to see it from every angle. His tongue pushes into his cheek like he's solving a problem. "Not the result of skill."
"Lucky is better than unlucky," I say. "We can work on skill now."
I glance at Tris. She grins at me, then leans in to whisper something to Christina.
"Are you here to help or what, Stiff?" I say. I hear myself speaking in the voice I cultivated as an initiatio ~ Veronica Roth

I have two sons, one living. I would not now trade the road Lisa and I took for an easier one. Losing James was hard, but I'm thankful that I got to see him, and I am thankful that I got to grieve him as well. As most any pilgrim will tell you, the difficulty of the undertaking is what gives it meaning. All the petty competition for authenticity among the pilgrims on the Camino has its roots in something by no means trivial: pilgrimage is meant to be done the hard way. A real pilgrimage, a real life, contains, and is defined by, difficulty – hardship, and how we respond to it, makes us who we are, certainly more than anything that comes easy. ~ David Hlavsa

*One clue that there's something not quite real about sequential time the way you experience it is the various paradoxes of time supposedly passing and of a so-called 'present' that's always unrolling into the future and creating more and more past behind it. As if the present were this car - nice car by the way - and the past is the road we've just gone over, and the future is the headlit road up ahead we haven't yet gotten to, and time is the car's forward movement, and the precise present is the car's front bumper as it cuts through the fog of the future, so that it's now and then a tiny bit later a whole different now, etc. Except if time is really passing, how fast does it go? At what rate does the present change? See? Meaning if we use time to measure motion or rate - which we do, it's the only way you can - 95 miles per hour, 70 heartbeats a minute, etc. - how are you supposed to measure the rate at which time moves? One second per second? It makes no sense. You can't even talk about time flowing or moving without hitting up against paradox right away. So think for a second: What if there's really no movement at all? What if this is all unfolding in the one flash you call
the present, this first, infinitely tiny split-second of impact when the speeding car's front bumper's just starting to touch the abutment, just before the bumper crumples and displaces the front end and you go violently forward and the steering column comes back at your chest as if shot out of s ~ David Foster Wallace

Normal is the greatest enemy with regard to creating the new. And the way of getting around this is you have to understand normal not as reality, but just a construct. And a way to do that, for example, is just travel to a lot of different countries and you'll find a thousand different ways of thinking the world is real, all of which are just stories inside of people's heads. That's what we are too. Normal is just a construct, and to the extent that you can see normal as a construct in yourself, you have freed yourself from the constraints of thinking this is the way the world is. Because it isn't. This is the way we are. ~ Alan Kay

That's what artists and athletes do day in and day out. Whether you see them at work or not the process is ongoing. They are working to achieve their heart's desire to either enlighten or entertain anyone who cares to watch or listen. Some of them achieve glory but others just do it because they love to and they are driven to.

When something, anything, interferes with that desire, their sense of self is jeopardized and they have to struggle to hang on to their identity. That's the real cost involved in producing a painting, writing a novel, or hitting over .300 for the season. ~ Richard Marcus

It's you, Tessa." He crawled up her body and levered her onto her side, his fingers a warm link he tunneled in under her hair. "Don't you see? For the first time, I know what's real. My life isn't about doing what everyone else thinks is right in order to be happy. Not anymore. Because I found my own happiness." The ball of his thumb swept her lips. "I found it with you." How could she not believe him, when his words were so filled with love? "Tell me what you're thinking," he said.

"I'd forgotten what it's like, you know? It's been so long…I'd just forgotten how incredible it all feels." When tears rushed her eyes, she blinked them away. So she could stay right in the moment, within the tenderness of his gaze. She placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. "I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you did for me, Dibs. You've become everything that's good and right in my life. And I'm sorry if I made things difficult for you." His eyes glistened, two sparkling bits of heaven over a thin crescent of tears.

"Rex, you're breaking my heart over here."

"I'm just so grateful, and its important to me you understand. You gave me a second chance at happiness. You know that, right? ~ A.J. Nuest

They say "doubt everything," but I disagree. Doubt is useful in small amounts, but too much of it leads to apathy and confusion. No, don't doubt everything. QUESTION everything. That's the real trick. Doubt is just a lack of certainty. If you doubt everything, you'll doubt evolution, science, faith, morality, even reality itself - and you'll end up with nothing, because doubt doesn't give anything back. But questions have answers, you see. If you question everything, you'll find that a lot of what we believe is untrue...but you might also discover that some things ARE true. You might discover what your own beliefs are. And then you'll question them again, and again, eliminating flaws, discovering lies, until you get as close to the truth as you can.

Questioning is a lifelong process. That's precisely what makes it so unlike doubt. Questioning engages with reality, interrogating all it sees. Questioning leads to a constant assault on the intellectual status quo, where doubt is far more likely to lead to resigned acceptance. After all, when the possibility of truth is doubtful (excuse the pun), why not simply play along with the most convenient lie?

Questioning is progress, but doubt is stagnation. ~ Tom Jubert / Jonas Kyratzes

It is important you understand how fear affects you and how it drives human behavior so you can start to see situations and people accurately and respond more appropriately. When someone is behaving badly, attacking you, or being defensive, critical, or judgmental, it is not really about you. Fear is the real reason people behave badly. Their fears make them selfish, defensive, mean, and grouchy. Every time someone is behaving badly, step back and ask yourself, "What is this person afraid of? What fear inside me is driving my reaction to their attack? What am I afraid of?"
When you can accurately see the fear behind their behavior, and yours, you will see the situation for what it really is. ~ Kimberly Giles

Most of us don't really fear political disagreements with our close friends. We fear not being liked and respected by people we like and respect. Challenging someone's political beliefs can signal (correctly or not) a lack of respect or affection. One way to prevent this from happening is to say something like 'I think you are a great person, and I value our friendship, so when I disagree with you it's because I value your opinion and want to learn more about how you see things.' If someone manages to communicate this idea to me, then I'm probably not going to hesitate to express my real opinions about controversial issues. It also helps if we don't call each other 'stupid,' 'evil,' or 'crazy' when 'I don't quite see it that way; help me understand what you mean' will do just fine. ~ Michael Austin

Film and television have convinced too many writers that heaps of dialogue make novels more like movies and therefore good. This is an amateur's fantasy, and it has induced some writers to surrender the few advantages they have over cinematic storytelling. The moviemaker is stuck with what the camera can see and the microphone can hear. You have more freedom. You can summarize situations. You can forthrightly give us people's histories. You can concentrate ten years into ten words. You can move anywhere you like outside real time. You can tell us - just tell us - what people are thinking and feeling. Yes, abundant dialogue can lighten a story, make it more readable and sparkle with wonders. But it is pitiably inadequate before what it is not suited to do. ~ Stephen Koch

Ix who?"
"Ix Caut. Your name in this life meant 'Little Snake.'" Bill watched her face change. "It was a term of endearment in the Mayan culture. Sort of."
"The same way getting your head impaled on a stick was an honor?"
Bill rolled his stone eyes. "Stop being so ethnocentric.That means thinking your own culture is superior to other cultures."
"I know what it means," she said, working the band into her dirty hair. "But I'm not being superior. I just don't think having my head stuck on one of these racks would be so great." There was a faint thrumming in the air,like faraway drumbeats.
"That's exactly the sort of thing Ix Caut would say! You always were a little bit backward!"
"What do you mean?"
"See,you-Ix Caut-were born during the Wayeb',which are these five odd days at the end of Mayan year that everyone gets real superstitious about because they don't fit into the calendar. Kind of like leap-year days.It's not exactly lucky to be born during the Wayeb'. So no one was shocked when you grew up to be an old maid. ~ Lauren Kate

What? (Nick)
You one of them humans can't follow Simi speak. That's okay. This is why the Simi don't bother talking to most humans 'cause, no offense, you all weird. Some of you even stupid. Real stupid. Like stump stupid. It's the lack of hornays, I say. See, only really smart creatures have hornays…except for them moo moo cows – they not bright. But akri says there's always an exception to every rule. So they would be the exception to the hornay one. But they taste really good so the Simi will forgive them for bringing down her bell curve of superior intellect over all the other nonhorned subspecies. (Simi ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'
Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'
Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'
I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'
I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'
What? Sure--yes, sir.'
Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'
Why . . . no, sir!'
Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war ~ Robert A. Heinlein

My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah ~ Nicholas Sparks

Big G.B. said, "Your Daddy ain't magic."
I said, "He ain't?"
He said, "Naw, there ain't any magic."
I said, "What about the blind man's dummy? Is Joesph of Arimathea magic?"
He said, "Get your shotgun, Sugar."
I went to the corner near the stove and took my shotgun by the barrel. I got my shell bag and looked at Big G.B.to see what he was thinking. His face didn't tell me. I stood by the kitchen door holding the shotgun and shells. I said, "Is Joseph of Arimathea magic, Big G.B.?"
He said, "There ain't no magic. Magic is the same as sentimental. Scratch the surface of sentimental and you know what you find?
Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Magic is German in nature and evil and not real. Scratch magic, Sugar, and you're looking for death. ~ Lewis Nordan

Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him. It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I cant say that it's even what you are willin to do. Because I always knew that you had to be willin to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothin but you do. If you aint they'll know it. They'll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willin to become. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I wont do that. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Other people's houses are right on top of this one," he said. "I think they could take one step and be in our living room."
"You haven't seen the courtyard yet, Gregori. The house opens up to a courtyard in the back, and it's immense and in quite good shape." Savannah began heading up the stairs, ignoring his grousing.
"I hate to think what you would call bad shape," he muttered as he followed her upstairs.
"I wonder why everything is so dusty," Savannah said. "I had the real estate people come in and clean and get things ready for our arrival."
"Do not touch anything," Gregori hissed softly, and very gently caught her shoulders to put her behind him.
"What is it?" Instinctively she lowered her voice and looked around, trying to see if there was some danger she had been unable to sense.
"If people came and made up the bed and prepared the house for your arrival, then they would have removed the dust too."
"Maybe they're incredibly incompetent," she suggested hopefully.
Gregori glanced at her and found the hard edge of his mouth softening. She was making him want to smile all the time, even in the most serious of situations. "I am certain any company would work overtime trying to make you happy, ma petite. I know I do."
She blushed at the memory of how he did so. "So why all the dust?" she asked, deliberately distracting him.
"I think Julian left us a message. You have remained with humans so long, you see only with your eyes." ~ Christine Feehan

There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these 'chases in Arras, dreams in a career,' beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another's eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan. ~ Arthur Machen

In painting as in prose, a good eye is not enough to tell you whether what you see is real or fake. ~ David Bellos

Q. Surely it is easier to be objective about other people than about oneself?
A. No, it is more difficult. If you become objective to yourself you can see other people objectively, but not before, because before that it will all be coloured by your own views, attitudes, tastes, by what you like and what you dislike. To be objective you must be free from it all. You can become objective to yourself in the state of self-consciousness: this is the first experience of coming into contact with the real object. ~ P.D. Ouspensky

...All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?"
"I am myself. My body will not decay and die-"
"A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life."
"I do not pay it! I can die and in that moment live again! I cannot be killed; I am immortal. I alone am myself forever!"
"Who are you, then?"
"The Immortal One."
"Say your name."
"The King."
"Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!"
"You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist."
"You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw your world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Sometimes you welcome people only for them to show you how unwelcoming you are. Sometimes you generously help people only for them to show you how extravagant and evil you are. Sometimes you teach people only for them to show you how ignorant you are. Sometimes you open your doors to people only for them to show you how dirty your room is. Sometimes you make way for people only for them to block your ways. Sometimes you draw people closer to you only for them to teach you the real meaning of betrayal and loneliness. Sometimes you smile to people only for them to show you the color of your teeth. Sometimes you play with people only for them to show you how uncouth you are. In life, sometimes, your very best intentions shall be seen as woefully bad. Sometimes in life, your very good deeds and acts would see another meaning, but no matter how people perceive, accept and treat you or your good intentions, acts and deeds, know yourself, and dare not to be changed by circumstances so easily! Regardless of how hurtful circumstances might be, dare to guard your heart and your tongue, so you may not speak what you should never say that can make you miss your reward from the Sovereign Lord. Keep doing what you have to do, as you have to do, as a living sacrifice to your Father who is in Heaven, knowing that your reward is from Him alone, and wait patiently with a calm and an understanding heart for your reward from Him, regardless of the arduous nature of the hurt and trials! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Alas," said Zee, "this predominance of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily, cannot be attained? ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I don't have all of the answers to the world. I don't know everything about life and marriage and happiness. But I do know what love is. And I do know that when love is real, and when love is in its strongest form, it is the most powerful thing on this earth. It kills, saves lives, heals wounds, and most of all, brings hope. That is what you have done for me, Lily. You have brought me hope. When I look into your eyes, I know that no matter what may happen to me, as long as I can see those eyes staring back at me, then I'll be fine. Somehow I'll make it through. Somehow I'll find a way to survive for you. And that's what I want to feel for the rest of my time here on Earth, however short or long that may be. I want to wake up every morning and see your shining face staring back at me. But I also want to protect you. I want to protect you from anything that may hurt you. I want to be there when you cry to dry your tears. When you feel lonely, I want to give you a kiss. When you are scared, to embrace you. And when you are happy, to share a laugh with you. I don't know what's in store for us, but I do know that true love outlasts everything. It outlasts doubt, hate, war, misfortune, and most of all death. I vow to you to always be beside you. Not only in this life, but the next. Because that's when love becomes real. That's when love becomes unchained from anything in this life. I know that when I die, the first thing that I will see will be your eyes. That is how I will know th ~ Mordred

No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It's the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it's the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That's how real a dream can be and should be) ~ James C. Collins

There is an emotional promiscuity we've noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to "share the journey." The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, What did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.

Be careful you do not offer too much of yourself to a man until you have good, solid evidence that he is a strong man willing to commit. Look at his track record with other women. Is there anything to be concerned about there? If so, bring it up. Also, does he have any close male friends - and what are they like as men? Can he hold down a job? Is he walking with God in a real and intimate way? Is he facing the wounds of his own life, and is he also demonstrating a desire to repent of Adam's passivity and/or violence? Is he headed somewhere with his life? A lot of questions, but your heart is a treasure, and we want you to offer it only to a man who is worthy and ready to handle it well. ~ Stasi Eldredge

So he's right?" Sophia said.

"From what I've read, yes. That was known back when you were...Never mind...Just...Technically he is right. Over."

"Ick," Sophia said. "I just...Maybe calling you wasn't the best choice, Da. Over."

"I'm glad you did. We never get to talk. But, I've got to get this straight. This Walker guy thinks she got pregnant from involuntary emissions on the damp bottom of a lifeboat? Over."

"Yes," Sophia said. "She's...virgo intacta. And they're both...Like Olga said, only virgins could be that incoherent about it. Over."

"You're not particularly incoherent about it, over."

"You've been talking to us about it since we were kids in one way or another," Sophia said. "And let's just say this cruise has been a real eye-opener."

"I'd say sorry but I didn't start the Plague. Okay, Walker. What's his medical background, over?"

"I'm not sure," Sophia said. "He said he took a course once that included advanced midwifery. I'm not even sure what that means except it has to do with delivering babies."

"God knows we're going to need it. Okay, I'm going to get the CDC to call you and see if they can confirm what you've said. I'm also going to pass this around in the official news bulletin. Over."

"Uh, isn't this a little private, Da?" Sophia asked.

"Well, it's that or every little old lady on the Boadicea will be beating him with their canes. Squadron, ~ John Ringo

What is the total sum of autumn? What is its content, form purpose? Its style, certainly, has unity. But what does it amount to? Eh, but what did the summer amount to, with all its greenery and flowers and sun? Fountains of red and brown will shot out soon. That's what the summer amounted to.

And you ask me about movies. I don't know what any movie amounts to. I am looking more for some light behind it, behind the images; I am trying to see the man.

It was Barbara Wise who said to me the other day - and she was right: The film critic should not explain what the movie is all about, surely an impossible task; he should help to create the right attitude for looking at movies. That's what my rambling is all about, nothing more.

Where was I? Yes, rambling. I will tell you the real truth: All that I have learned in my life (and I have seen many movies) amounts to this: Leaves are falling every autumn. I will be there with my camera when they fall. ~ Jonas Mekas

I like to judge people and it was clear to me that Colin's life has been about as exciting as a cluster headache. You can tell this just from his humour tumour which runs through every conversation you have with him. I got the impression that Colin had arrived at his early fifties resenting the fact that he's spent his entire career worshiping at the altar of Dynasty PLC. But he is now so indoctrinated by the world of corporate banking that he's forgotten how to express the real him.

This is what a life working for large corporations does to people. The workplace is a place not to be you; it's a place to be the corporate you. The you that doesn't really exist. We all see this corporate you and pretend that it's a normal part of life. But we know that something isn't quite right. We know that the real you is slowly fading away like old wallpaper. The corporate you is a myth; just like Icarus. And yet we are powerless against it. All of us are powerless against the wrath of the corporate world. ~ Rupert Dreyfus