Reality Quotes - Page 390

Do you call it doubting to write down on a piece of paper that you doubt? If so, doubt has nothing to do with any serious business. But do not make believe; if pedantry has not eaten all the reality out of you, recognize, as you must, that there is much that you do not doubt, in the least. Now that which you do not at all doubt, you must and do regard as infallible, absolute truth.

With a profound first-hand knowledge of participants, encompassing linguistic competence, and engaging prose, Padraic Kenney recreates the simultaneously serious and playful currents of East Europe's overthrow of repressive state socialism. What an invaluable guide to the elusive exhilaration that motivated the actors and captivated all of us who followed the transformation with such hope! We can appreciate neither the ebullience of 1989 nor the disappointment with the quotidian reality that followed without understanding Kenney's 'carnival.'

We knew it was coming but there were some rumors of a possible 50 basis point cut (a half a percentage point) and every time that happens it sets us up for disappointments. The reality is a very large majority of people don't know how to react to this so they're taking their cue from the market. It's really indecision.

When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.

Engaging and well paced, the book fills in the reality behind Vonnegut's work

The problems of the global economy are not based in perception, but in the reality of prices, balance sheets and income statements, vast concentrations of wealth and power, precarious systemic imbalances, ruthless exploitation, and command economies mismanaged by Central State/Bank policy and manipulation.

There really is confusion out there. Finding common ground sounds good. But the reality is, a lot of people on all sides have a stake in the fight.

Oh Agnes, Oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!

We Americans think we enjoy self-government. We have all the trappings of self-government, like elections. But in reality, we have gradually lost many of our rights to govern ourselves. We have the form of self-government, but only some of the substance. We are, in a sense, a nation run by a handful of judges who often enforce, not the law, but their personal opinions.

It's the same reason why someone has a Web page or why people feel comfortable going on reality TV.

Poetry might be more about the eternal verities, the essence of the human soul, and - although it's reductive to say so - fiction has perhaps been more about the differences between the unconstrained world of the imagination and the realities you run into, day-to-day, when you're riding your donkey.

Narrating incredible things as though they were real old system; narrating realities as though they were incredible the new.

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.

It's really hard to separate fantasy from reality.

So often, happiness is the extent to which we balance our grandiose expectations with reality.

I had the idea that there were secret laws of the universe that could explain the baffling human reality around me, and that philosophers maybe had the key to them.

All great reality shows have a very, very similar format. That's why it was so easy to parody.

People will always want it [reality TV shows], if it's produced well and if it's telling people's stories - that's all anybody wants: to connect with another human being on a very basic level. If the stories are told well, I think it can continue and continue.

what did wards matter when you could create your own reality just by drawing it?

These people are obsessive. They go overboard interpreting verbal and behavioral cues that take them way beyond reality.

Everybody knows what's going on. Even if they don't watch it they know what's happening.

To me, the grotesque is like a sonic manifestation of reality. I don't know how you could look out onto our world and see only beauty. And I like beautiful things. I like the aesthetically harmonious. But I am much more attracted to something that is off-kilter. It is a truer reflection of not only nature, but the human spirit - the state of the world. I just think everything feels a little off.

Have I ever been horrified to see someone in my clothes? Many times, but I close my eyes and look the other way. That happens to everyone. What can you do? Go and tell her, 'Don't wear that dress again'? We designers always have fantasies in our heads, but the difficult task is to make them reality. Because you can be the best designer, but designing in your own place and with nobody wearing [your clothes], then what happens? You're nowhere.

The writers' strike a couple years ago was a bonanza for reality TV shows new and old.

At night, I love to look in the houses. When I was little, I did that much more, when I was so bored. It might be awful in those houses, of course, but I still speculate about them in a romantic way. It's the same if you are famous: you are in the light, and most people have fantasies about you, but these fantasies have nothing to do with reality.