Constance > Constance's Quotes

“The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.”
― George R.R. Martin

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski and Carl Weissner

“Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, and don't put up with people that are reckless with yours.”
― Mary Schmich

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”
― Elie Wiesel

“the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

“You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I. When I'm dead, I'm going to forget everything–and I advise you to do the same.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“I'm odd, I know,' he said. 'It's fear of myself that's made me odd.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“...and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Bromeliad Trilogy

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
― Billy Sunday, "Billy" Sunday, the man and his message: with his own words which have won thousands for Christ

“I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.”
― G. K. Cherston

“Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.”
― George R.R. Martin

“The heart lies and the head plays tricks on us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in a way knowing the truth.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Fear cuts deeper than swords.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country

“You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes