At Least I'm Real Quotes & Sayings

What's going on?" I asked, gauging her expression. "Talk to me."
She leaned into me again. "Don't want to talk."
"Sara, I don't mind being your distraction but at least be honest with me aboout it. Something's wrong."
"I'm fine." But she wasn't fine. She wouldn't have come here if she were.
"Bullshit. You're breaking your own rules by even being here. This is better -this is real- but it's also different and I want to know why. — Christina Lauren

Say, Sometimes I think there may be more truth in fiction than in real life. Or at least truth condensed so that it's more easily understood. But what do I know of real people or the world, considering my strange existence? — Dean Koontz

Sometimes I think there may be more truth in fiction than in real life. Or at least truth condensed so that it's more easily understood - Addison Goodheart pg. 84 — Dean Koontz

There is something beginning to be wrong with the mortals, a certain lack of interest and ability. The birth rate has plummeted all over the world. There are millions of inner children and fewer and fewer real ones. I remember seeing a holo feature on a certain famous amusement park: roller coasters and merry-go-rounds packed with forty-year-olds clutching the wonder of childhood to themselves like harpies, and not one little face in the crowd. Neverland has been invaded by the grownups, no children allowed. It's better than having lots of real kids starving in gutters, at least. Mind — Kage Baker

We talk like we know what's going on, but we don't. We don't know anything. We're really young and we're gonna screw up a lot. We're gonna keep changing our minds and even sometimes our hearts. And through all that, the only real thing we can offer each other is forgiveness. I couldn't do that. Or at least, I did it too late. Don't make my mistake. Don't let yourself be so angry you stop loving. Because one day you'll wake up from that anger and the person you love will be gone. — Kevin Williamson

After seeing amazing magical places like Neverland, Oz, Narnia and Wonderland, why did you ever want to leave?"
The girls looked to one another; they had never been asked the question before, at least in Alex's mind.
"Because no matter where you go or what you see, you'll always want to be where you belong," Lucy said.
"Your home is where you feel most comfortable and loved," Wendy said.
"It's a part of you," Alice added. "It's where your family is."
"There's no place like home," Dorothy said, as if it was the first time she'd ever said those words.
Alex appreciated what they had to say, but wasn't sure if she entirely agreed. "I wonder, though, if home sometimes isn't where you're from," she said.
The girls looked at her as if she had already answered her own question. Alex wondered if that had been the real question lingering in her mind all along. — Chris Colfer

I think the best life would be one that's lived off the grid. No bills, your name in no government databases. No real proof you're even who you say you are, aside from, you know, being who you say you are. I don't mean living in a mountain hut with solar power and drinking well water. I think nature's beautiful and all, but I don't have any desire to live in it. I need to live in a city. I need pay as you go cell phones in fake names, wireless access stolen or borrowed from coffee shops and people using old or no encryption on their home networks. Taking knife fighting classes on the weekend! Learning Cantonese and Hindi and how to pick locks. Getting all sorts of skills so that when your mind starts going, and you're a crazy raving bum, at least you're picking their pockets while raving in a foreign language at smug college kids on the street. At least you're always gonna be able to eat. — Joey Comeau

I believe I have stumbled on at least one possibility: if you are compelled to tell others virtually everything you learn from God, you might be a teacher! My friends who have other spiritual gifts can learn something from God without feeling the overwhelming need to share it with everyone they know. Not me! The second I receive the least spiritual insight or learn anything at all about the practicality of Scripture slapped on the hot pavement of real life, I want to make the world's biggest conference call. — Beth Moore

As an actor, you have to be able to take all sides as well. You have to at least be able to understand things. No bad guy looks in the mirror every morning and says, boy, I'm gonna be a real bad guy this morning. He goes after his own what he's after, just like us good guys. You kind of have to take a stand and, a lot of times, you have to take the writer's stand or the stand of the character this writer has created. — Michael McKean

I mean, it's one thing saying you've got the best god, but sayin' it's the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week. And they say everyone starts out bad and only gets good by believin' in Om, which is frankly damn nonsense. — Terry Pratchett

It felt like an eternity before he gingerly lifted himself from the table and staggered backwards. Glass shards protruded from chest to groin. The guy looked like a bloody porcupine. A cute, tall bloody porcupine. I'm tall too. Five foot ten. But he had at least four inches on me, even with my thick-heeled boots.
"What's your name?" he slurred.
While visions of reckless homicide charges danced in my head, I contemplated using an alias. Finally, I said my real name, "Sam."
"Nice to meet you, Sammers. I'm Jake," he said. — Betsy Cook Speer

At least, not as familiar as you are with fetish wear."
Her gaze jerked over to him. Those delicately arched brows pinched down. "What are you talking about?"
"You." Using the gun, he gestured at her body. "In that boner-inspiring fluff called underwear. You're more than comfortable with it. Hell, a real innocent wouldn't even have figured out how to wear it, much less used it to taunt me."
Her lips curled. "Oh, poor Trace. Did you feel taunted?"
"Yeah." He stared at her mouth. "I did. — Lori Foster

Still, it was a starting point for someone with my special skills - the professional ones - and I pondered it as I worked. It was, after all, an area of real personal interest to me. And additionally, if this had been Deborah's case, she would almost certainly have demanded some kind of special insight from Sick and Twisted Me. So I thought about it, and although I came up with nothing helpful, at least it passed the time. — Jeff Lindsay

In third period Math, we were forced to sit in alphabetical order. Which put me right behind Logan, who was throwing all those passes to Aiden in the scrimmage. He took off his navy blazer and when he leaned forward to write, I could see muscles bulging across his back and shoulders. I can already tell Math is going to suck, but at least I'll have a nice view.
It's like what Grandpa always says about real estate. Location, location, location. — Jillian Dodd

I'm not really gangsta. Not at all. I just write about them. It's fun to pretend, at least on paper. But in real life, not so much. — Terence Winter

That is my dilemma. Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, the rest of it was God's will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness. But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn't it. The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances ... is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God. — Mary Doria Russell

Why don't you have a cup of coffee at least? I, um, I'm a little low in sugar and I don't have any cream, but it's real coffee. — Barbra Streisand

He was
a jerk. Moody. But there had been brief moments that I'd spent with him - like a nanosecond - when I thought I might have seen the real Daemon. At
least a better Daemon. And that part made me curious. And the other side, the jerky one, yeah, that part didn't make me curious.
It sort of excited me. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I'm not a particularly religious person, but that feeling of getting transmissions from someplace else, even if it's from your own consciousness, is very, very real. To me, at least. — John Hodgman

At our meeting, I suggested to Steven and Lynda two guidelines for the science of Interstellar: 1. Nothing in the film will violate firmly established laws of physics, or our firmly established knowledge of the universe. 2. Speculations (often wild) about ill-understood physical laws and the universe will spring from real science, from ideas that at least some "respectable" scientists regard as possible. — Kip S. Thorne

I mean this is not like a very dry political book. This is - it was a very quick and entertaining and interesting read because there were so many stories, at least for me, of real women and - and sort of the issues that they face, and her commitment to wanting to help them. — Eleanor Smeal

At Least I Am Free

At last I am free
I can hardly see in front of me
I can hardly see in front of me

And now love please listen
To what I say
I can't go on living life this way
I've tried and I've tried
To make you see
You call this love
All this lying, my friend, it just can't be

At last I am free
I can hardly see in front of me
I can hardly see in front of me

And now love, please hold me
Come closer, my dear
It feels so good, just having you near
But who am I fooling
When I know it's not real?
I can't hide
All this hurt and pain inside I feel — Elisabeth Fraser

A commander should recollect, that, whether it be he himself, or chiefly his officers and crew, who perform any useful public service, he invariably reaps at least his full share of the credit. His real interest, therefore, must always be, not merely to draw about him the ablest men he can induce to follow him, but to allow them the utmost latitude of independent action and responsibility, and as much of the merit of success as possible. If he persevere sincerely in this course, he will soon discover that the more he endeavours to remove the credit from himself, or, rather, to divide it handsomely with those who are acting with him, the more will he generally find the merit given back to himself. I — Basil Hall

In the United States, there is a restaurant called The Outback Steakhouse, and I could survive in there for several weeks at least, sustaining myself on bloomin' onions and, I'm sure, their legitimate and very Australian cuisine. In the real Outback? I give myself about 14 minutes. — Steve Carell

I succeeded at math, at least by the usual evaluation criteria: grades. Yet while I might have earned top marks in geometry and algebra, I was merely following memorized rules, plugging in numbers and dutifully crunching out answers by rote, with no real grasp of the significance of what I was doing or its usefulness in solving real-world problems. Worse, I knew the depth of my own ignorance, and I lived in fear that my lack of comprehension would be discovered and I would be exposed as an academic fraud
psychologists call this "imposter syndrome". — Jennifer Ouellette

It's funny, this - so many words to describe the same thing," she smiled..."Penis is simply an anatomical appendage, as exciting as a finger or a phalange. A willy is something small and flaccid, and at least slightly humorous. Prick is the organ as viewed with distaste, perhaps with so much as to describe the entire body it's attached to, like a dick, but more so. Phallus is a symbol of fertility, but my favourite...is the cock, which is only ever the hard, real thing, unleashed and ready to dive head-first into any waiting orifice. Or hole, while I'm in thesaurus mode. — Morgana Blackrose

I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. I told them that because if you agree to an interview you have to say something, and it plays better if it's something at least half-clever. Also, I didn't want to sound like a workaholic dweeb (just a workaholic, I guess). The truth is that when I'm writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway). And when I'm not working, I'm not working at all, although during those periods of full stop I usually feel at loose ends with myself and have trouble sleeping. For me, not working is the real work. — Stephen King

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing. — Kevin Smith

She looked u at me through tear-stained cheeks and stammered, "My dad won't give me a Porsche when I come home if I don;t get all A's." I was a bit stunned. IT was my first encounter with real wealth. I remember looking at her and thinking, Holy shit. Being spoiled is worse abuse that being hit. At least I knew that being hit is wrong, But being spoiled ruins you. — Jewel

I've always thought the pre-Revolutionary system was more elegant, but it did concentrate too much power in the hands of one person. Keyes says that at least you knew who the man was then. The person who represents a Lobby in Congress is never the one who makes the real decisions; the real leaders are rarely identifiable and are never held responsible for their actions. If a puppet gets in trouble they sacrifice him and haul out another. I don't doubt that that's true, at least some of the time, but it's certainly not the whole story. If a Lobby consistently acts against the public interest, its voting power dwindles away. Keyes says that's a cynical illusion: all the polls reflect is how much money a Lobby has put into advertising. — Joe Haldeman

Most of this I've told before, or at least hinted at, but what I have never told is the full truth. How I cracked. How at work one morning, standing on the pig line, I felt something break open in my chest. I don't know what it was. I'll never know. But it was real, I know that much, it was a physical rapture
a cracking-leaking-popping feeling. I remember dropping my water gun. Quickly, almost without thought, I took off my apron and walked out of the plant and drove home. It was midmorning, I remember, and the house was empty. Down in my chest there was still that leaking sensation, something very warm and precious spilling out, and I was covered with blood and hog-stink, and for a long while I just concentrated on holding myself together. — Tim O'Brien

None of those little girls had ever seemed real to Jimmy - they'd always struck him as digital clones ... Jimmy knew the drill. They were supposed to look like that, he thought ... There were at least three layers of contradictory make-believe, one on top of the other. I want to, I want to not, I want to ... Oryx smiled a hard little smile that made her appear much older ... Then she looked over her shoulder and right into the eyes of the viewer - right into Jimmy's eyes, into the secret person inside him. I see you, that look said. I see you watching. I know you. I know what you want. — Margaret Atwood

Ever since the infamous quiz show scandals of the 1950s, the feds had insisted that TV game shows be honest - or that at least they didn't cheat. So as a 'Dating Game' bachelor, I didn't know what I was going to be asked. The other bachelors and I were required to concoct our answers in real time. — Seth Shostak

It was only vanity and discouragement that sometimes made me feel alone with my endless love, but now that I was taking one of the risks my heart had urged upon me I could also feel I was not alone. If endless love was a dream, then it was a dream we all shared, even more than we all shared the dream of never dying or of traveling through time, and if anything set me apart it was not my impulses but my stubbornness, my willingness to take the dream past what had been agreed upon as the reasonable limits, to declare that this dream was not a feverish trick of the mind but was an actuality at least as real as that other, thinner, more unhappy illusion we call normal life. After all, the intimations of endless love were the same now as they were thousands of years before, while normal life had changed a thousand times and in a thousand different ways. Which then, was more real? — Scott Spencer

While his three eldest sons spent their adult lives toiling to improve the family fortunes, who had Benicio named as his heir? The illegitimate youngest son who had devoted his adult life to destroying the family business, or at least buggering it up real good. Does this make sense to anyone besides Benicio? Of course not. Either the man is a mastermind of family manipulation or just plain fucked in the head. I don't use that word much, but in some cases, nothing else fits.
-Paige — Kelley Armstrong

My attitude is if somebody blunders into the level of popularity; at least remember the human factor. These guys are still human beings and hopefully still have hearts and if you keep in touch with them rather than vilify them you may be able to encourage them to go in the right direction. What I'm hoping will eventually happen is that they will grasp the amount of power and financial clout that is now at their fingertips and use those as tools to help real people with real things the way punk politics was always designed to do before, but nobody had any money. — Jello Biafra

The next couple of jobs will determine, at least from a business point of view, if I'm a guy who's actually the real thing or I'm a guy who's had a nice moment. — Josh Brolin

The public had an endless appetite for stories like that. Subconsciously, I think they think the gods of luck will favor them when the tromp of doom starts to thump. As for survivor interviews, I find them very boring, but I'm apparently in the minority. At least half of them had this to say: "God was watching over me." Most of those people didn't even believe in a god. This is the deity-as-hit-man view of theology. What I always thought was, if God was looking out for you, he must have had a real hard-on for all those folks he belted into the etheric like so many rubbery javelins. — John Varley

Nobody, anywhere, has any real sense what is actually going on." This doesn't seem to get a very good reaction from the crowd - no doubt I'm scowling as I say it, but still. I continue: "I don't either, but at least I know I don't. I'm sorry but you people aren't like me." This is me trying to take the edge off. Being friendly. "You haven't done the shit I've done. — Patrick Somerville

If I'm still conscious to face the consequences of my actions, then at the very least I will know that my actions were real, thay they indeed had consequences, though my lone life will amount to less than a single click of static in the symphony of the big bang. If my actions were real, then so were my memories, and if those were real, the things I've done have allowed me to see God and I0m not afraid of following my life down that eight-second black rabbit hole. — Craig Clevenger

I'm going to leave Las Vegas a loser, but at least I didn't gamble my heart. — Jessica Love

Stop protecting your heart. Or at least give me the chance to win it. I'm scared here, too. I'm taking the same risks you are." He took a breath. "Can't you see that what we have is real? Can't you see we belong together? Where am I ever going to find another girl who can give back as good as I give? Who laughs with me and makes me crazy? — Diane Darcy

I'm not a huge social media kind of guy, so I don't really know, I don't really ever get ... at least in real life, I really don't get recognized. I think people seem to find it very difficult to connect me to characters I've played. — Freddie Stroma

We should take pictures!" Elise said.
"Anyone got a camera?" Celeste asked. "I;m a pro at this."
"Mason does!" Kross shouted. "Come here for a minute," she said to a maid, waving her over encouragingly.
"Hold on," I said, grabbing some paper. "Okay, okay. 'Your Highest of Highnesses, the ladies of the Elite require, immediately, the least fancy of your cameras for. . .'"
Kriss giggled, and Celeste shook her head.
"Oh! A study in feminine diplomacy," Elise added.
"Is that a real thing?" Kross asked.
Celeste tossed her hair. "Who cares?"
Maybe twenty minutes later, Maxon knocked on the door and pushed it open an inch. "Can I come in?"
Kross ran over. "No. We just want the camera." And she snatched it from his hand and closed the door in his face.
Celeste fell on the floor, laughing.
"What are you doing in there?" he called. But we were all too busy doubling over to answer. — Kiera Cass

It's weird how I can feel so empty, so scared, but so full at the same time. Like I'm back in my own body. Like no matter what's about to happen, at least it's happening to the real me. The one I can respect." -Amber — Jaye Robin Brown

So it's back once more, back up the slope.
Why do they always ruin my rope
with their cuts?
I felt so ready the other day,
Had a real foretaste of eternity
In my guts.
Spoonfeeding me yet another sip
from life's cup.
I don't want it, won't take any more of it.
Let me throw up.
Life is medium rare and good, I see,
And the world full of soup and bread,
But it won't pass into the blood for me,
Just goes to my head.
It makes me ill, though others it feeds;
Do see that I must deny it!
For a thousand years from now at least
I'm keeping a diet. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I would love to do comedy. I think I'm funny and that comedy is my strong suit, at least in real life. I have yet to prove myself in the movies, but I'd love to get the opportunity to do that. — Evan Peters

... and tell him how I felt - how I really felt - and see if he might want to give it another chance. Even if he said no, at least I would have tried. At least I would have tried to be as honest as I could be. Because right now I was just running away when things got too real. — Morgan Matson

I thought about that while he made his next calls, while I kept on with the newsletters. I thought about it during Sunday service at Word of Life, and during study hours in my room, with the Viking Erin and her squeaky pink highlighter. What it meant to really believe in something - for real. Belief. The big dictionary in the Promise library said it meant something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held conviction or opinion. But even that definition, as short and simple as it was, confused me. True or real: Those were definite words; opinion and conviction just weren't - opinions wavered and changed and fluctuated with the person, the situation. And most troubling of all was the word accepts. Something one accepts. I was much better at excepting everything than accepting anything, at least anything for certain, for definite. That much I knew. That much I believed. — Emily M. Danforth

But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it. But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it. As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm so glad it works. — Kurt Vonnegut

If I was Todd's wife in real life, I'd have to kill myself. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic. I wouldn't kill myself. But I'd definitely turn lesbian, at the very least. — Kristin Walker

I've never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I'm hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones. — Viggo Mortensen

This was ambiguity: holding on to an empty space between two extremes. "You were hurt, a little, weren't you?" his wife had asked. "I'm human, after all. I was hurt," he'd replied. But that wasn't true. Half of it, at least, was a lie. I wasn't hurt enough when I should have been, Kino admitted to himself. When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it. I didn't want to take it on, so I avoided facing up to it. Which is why my heart is so empty now. The snakes have grabbed that spot and are trying to hide their coldly beating hearts there. — Haruki Murakami

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible. It's best that I be as clear about this as I can - I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). If you can see things this way (or at least try to), we can work together comfortably. If, on the other hand, you decide I'm crazy, that's fine. You won't be the first. — Stephen King

Once again Erak bellowed with laughter. "Your master here went nearly the same shade of green as his cloak," he told Will. Halt raised an eyebrow. "At least I found a use for that damned helmet," he said, and the smile disappeared from Erak's face. "Yes. I'm not sure what I'm going to tell Gordoff about that," he said. "He made me promise I'd look after that helmet. It's his favorite-a real family heirloom." "Well it certainly has a lived in feel to it now," Halt told him, and Will noticed there was a hint of malicious pleasure in his eye. — John Flanagan

Will you at least have some coffee with me before you leave?" Furi pouted, immediately feeling silly for it.

"Dude. You're way too tatted up to ever make that face." Doug laughed. He bent over and pressed a kiss to Furi's forehead. "I will not have a cup of your nasty coffee. I will however, take you to breakfast and drink some real coffee with you."

Furi felt better already. He stood, wrapped his arms around Doug, and whispered, "Thank you for last night. I needed it."

"I know. Now go get dressed." Doug popped him on the shoulder. — A.E. Via

I'll kill her, freak. (Pitala)
Then I'll kill you and laugh while I do it. Either way it's no real sweat off my balls. Release her and you can at least walk away alive. But that's not a standing offer. Make your mind up quick before I kill you just for getting me out on a night when I'd rather be at home doing needlework. (Nykyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I feel like real love should take time, or at least, more time than this. I've been trying to make my head rule my actions, when my heart has so obviously taken over, but I feel how I feel, and I know it's not going away. — R.K. Lilley

Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn't open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you've looked. That's the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don't, but between those who want to know everything and those who don't. This search is a sign of love I maintain. — Julian Barnes

You're perfect. Almost too perfect ... Sometimes I wonder if you're even real.
I close my eyes with his words, as his mouth finds my collarbone. I am real. At least, parts of who he's seen are. And this is real, what's happening between us right now. — K.A. Tucker

For a long time I only stare. A thousand thoughts hit me at once, the least of which is the fact that she is real. Flesh and blood. Dutch. Her light soaks into me. Begins to heal me instantly. I begin to calm. To slow my breathing. To clear my head. I don't know what to think, other than the fact that she is more beautiful than I ever dreamed. She is real. And she has seen me. The real me. I have no robes to hide beneath now. No cloak. — Darynda Jones

Yeah, well, I'm pissed off that I give a shit too but I do. When I fuck you, I want you to know it's me, I want you to need me there with the very core of your being, clinging to me as if you'd die without it. I want it to be raw and real. Hell, even when Cupid was involved, at least I knew it was about us and not because I happened to be there when you were having a bad week. — Donna Augustine

And because when you die, the world dies, too, at least for you, they assume the world will die for everybody. It's a failure of imagination, in a way - an inability to conceive of the universe without you in it. That's why old people get apocalyptic: they're facing apocalypse, and that part, the private apocalypse, is real. So the closer their personal oblivion gets, the more certain geriatrics project impending doom on their surroundings. Also, there's almost a spitefulness, sometimes. I swear, for some of these bilious Chicken Littles, imminent Armageddon isn't a fear but a fantasy. Like they want the entire planet to implode into a giant black hole. Because if they can't have their martinis on the porch anymore then nobody else should get to sip one, either. — Lionel Shriver

And you thought you'd honk Shay off real good by asking the man at the top of her Most Hated list." "She doesn't hate you." "Could've fooled me." "Well, you haven't fooled anybody, least of all me." Miss Lucy's eyes, magnified by the bottle glasses, narrowed knowingly. Travis looked toward the darkening sky and clamped his jaw. "Don't know what you're talking about." "Don't be contrary with me, Travis McCoy. I've known you since you were running around this place in nothing but a diaper. You're still in love with Shay. — Denise Hunter

I grill almost all of my fish with the skin on because that gives you real protection at least on one side. It's a nice barrier against super high heat which tends to make a lot of fish to turn really flaky. It's very easy to overcook fish on the grill. But I still brush it with oil before I start. — Alton Brown

The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit. — Tom Peters

I think I just have an idea in my head about how big an adventure game should be, so it's hard for me to design one that's much smaller than Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. There's just a certain amount of scope needed to create a complex puzzle space and to develop a real story. At least with my brain, there is. — Tim Schafer

A typical day in my writing life starts with looking at pictures of real estate online for at least 20 minutes. If I happen to be actually in the market for a house, I do this for 40 minutes. Then I walk my dog, come back home, and tell myself I can look at real estate for another five minutes. — Meghan Daum

The thing is, I can't love her, not in the real world. Because this would be degrading to me. To love someone who despises you, and she just might. You should see her eyes on me sometimes. Plus she's not even a mother anymore, she's just a planet with a face. Da at least has hands. — Victor Lodato

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. — Maggie Smith

I had worked and waited for this day. In solving this mystery I had also proved something, at least to myself, and I finally knew what real research would feel like. But as satisfying as it was, it still stands out as one of the loneliest moments of my life. On some deep level, the realization that I could do good science was accompanied by the knowledge that I had formally and terminally missed my chance to become like any of the women that I had ever known. In — Hope Jahren

You are in love, at a point where pride and apprehension scuffle within you. Part of you wants time to slow down: for this, you say to yourself, is the best period of your whole life. I am in love, I want to savour it, study it, lie around in languor with it; may today last forever. This is your poetical side. However, there is also your prose side, which urges time not to slow down but hurry up. How do you know this is love, your prose side whispers like a sceptical lawyer, it's only been around for a few weeks, a few months. You won't know it's the real thing unless you (and she) still feel the same in, oh, a year or so at least; that's the only way to prove you aren't living a dragonfly mistake. Get through this bit, however much you enjoy it, as fast as possible; then you'll be able to find out whether or not you're really in love. — Julian Barnes

I have found there are real objects under in intelligent control being seen on the ground and in our skies worldwire. The unknowns have varied over the decades from 22 percent in my own civilian files, 30 percent in the University of Colorda Condon Committee scientific studies, to at least 40 percent recently revised found in the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book military investigations. This is not acceptable, no matter who is doing the investigations. — George Fawcett

I at least wanted to appear strong and elegant in your eyes just like a manga heroine who's too perfect to be real - Nana
The only person who will ever be my hero is you, Nana - Hachi — Ai Yazawa

What sucks even more is getting hung up on the "what is he thinking and feeling?" shit. Does he miss me as much as I miss him? No. If he did, you'd know it by his actions. Is he seeing someone else? Maybe. Probably. Or at least he's planning on it. Again-it sucks, but if you get real about it you'll realize that knowing the answers to these questions still doesn't change the fact that your relationship didn't make the cut. — Greg Behrendt

The myth of what we might term, simply, freedom - the myth that the less encumbered and entangled I am, or the less accountable and anchored I am to a particular relationship, the better able I am to find my truest self and secure real happiness. This myth is so ingrained in our imaginations, I suspect, that it may undergird and nurture all the other myths Myers mentions. And it's not hard to see how it strikes at the root of friendship. If your deepest fulfillment is found in personal autonomy, then friendship - or at least the close kind I want to recommend in these pages - is more of a liability than an asset. — Wesley Hill

I've worked with a lot of real heavy hitters, and Quentin is maybe heads and shoulders, at least a forehead, above just about anybody I've ever worked with. — David Carradine

Some subjects are timeless, and I would say that food is one of them. Yet only by comparing notes this way can We of the World Who Have Known Real Hunger actually get together and form our own sort of imaginary club. Our members today would be from everywhere, from Africa, from Europe, from Asia, everywhere. But regardless of our assorted languages, regardless of our assorted politics, the members would have something far more in common than the members of most clubs do. Would would at least know that the universal implement we all have, the stomach, usually behaves the same way under duress and causes us all to have much the same kinds of dreams. — Gregory Boyington

It's entirely possible to get to know someone without actually seeing them in person. In fact, it's better like that because none of the superficial stuff gets in the way. You really get to know a person. And it's easier to express yourself when you're writing things down. At least it is for me. I like to order my thoughts, and delete them if they don't make any sense. You can't do that in real life. — Cat Clarke

I never used to bother with exercises. Now I spend at least 10 minutes each morning working out with small weights — Marilyn Monroe

Reading a poem is a real thing, a worthy thing. So to be there right with the reader at that moment is part of the effect of a title like "Poem for" something or other. Matt Rohrer does this a lot in his titles, and I think I might have gotten some of the idea to do this, or at least been reminded of how it can work, from his recent amazing books. — Matthew Zapruder

I had reached the point, at Balbec, of regarding the pleasure of playing with a troop of girls as less destructive of the spiritual life, to which at least it remains alien, than friendship, the whole effort of which is directed towards making us sacrifice the only part of ourselves that is real and incommunicable (otherwise than by means of art) to a superficial self which, unlike the other, finds no joy in its own being, but rather a vague, sentimental glow at feeling itself supported by external props, hospitalised in an extraneous individuality, where, happy in the protection that is afforded it there, it expresses its well-being in warm approval and marvels at qualities which it would denounce as failings and seek to correct in itself. — Marcel Proust

We are all connected
I believed it then and believe it still now
at least in an energetic sense. And who's to say this energy is not real? We can't see gravity, either, yet we don't deny it. We can't see magnetism, yet we don't question its forcefulness. So, why, then, when people
spiritual people
talk about a force of substance that binds us all, that unites us all
when these people talk about souls
why do we dismiss them as charlatans? — Garth Stein

My net worth is the market value of holdings less the tax payable upon sale. The liability is just as real as the asset unless the value of the asset declines (ouch), the asset is given away (no comment), or I die with it. The latter course of action would appear to at least border on a Pyrrhic victory. — Warren Buffett

It's too late to save Micah's dad, but we were able to save you, you fucking ungrateful, misogynistic, prejudiced, racist, undeserving bastard.'
Travers's face sort of froze, and then it was like he looked lost. He just turned without another word and walked out.
'What the hell was that about?' Jonas asked, to no one in particular.
Since the question hadn't been directed at anyone in particular, no one answered it. In fact, the silence was a little thick.
It was Deputy Al from the back of the room. 'Sorry I'm late, but damn, Anita, you cuss real pretty.'
It made people laugh, at least a little. — Laurell K. Hamilton

I think real enlightenment is total sanity, a kind of acceptance of what actually is. It does involve a kind of different way of looking at things. As I've done this Zen practice for years and years, I've acquired what I realize is an almost upside down view of life compared to what most people think, which is just what I used to think it was too. It's not really an insane view, at least I hope it's not. — Brad Warner

-You find the metal, I'll make the bell," said Liam. "Listen, this rampage sounds like it's going to make a real mess out of the city. I just got my studio rebuilt from the last fire, and I'm fairly certain my insurance doesn't cover 'acts of archangels.' At least, not without a large deductible. Any ideas on how to stop the ritual?"- — J.C. Nelson

I am the same artist with the same nagging questions I had in my early 20's. What's real and what isn't? How do we tell what's real in our lives? How do we see things as they are? What is my role in life? If the Signature hadn't forced the issue by devoting its season to my plays, I could at least believe I had changed. Really, they're all the same! What is SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION but THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES with money? — John Guare

So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be your sunny personality."
"They saw her shoot," says Peeta with a smile. "Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself."
"You're that good?" Haymitch asks me. — Suzanne Collins

For the last six or seven years the circus has no longer been in fashion. That is a pity. One should go to the circus, beyond any question of fashion, at least one or two times a year-I am not speaking here to the real enthusiasts, they know better than I what they have to do. — Adrienne Monnier

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distress. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the workman and the master there are frequent relations, but no real association.
I am of the opinion, on the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest that ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrates into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they will enter. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Literature is impossible, in exactly this sense: every new generation has so much 'catching up' to do that the real choice that presents itself soon is the following one: one either spends ones entire life just reading all the classics, or one pretends to be 'contemporary and hip' and never reads any of the classics because in order to pretend to be contemporary one has to at least superficially read the works of contemporaries. Hence the dilemma: one either does not care about being fashionable, or one is fashionable and just learns to mimic some knowledge about the classics. As time develops this rift just becomes bigger, because the amount of books written grows and grows to insane proportions. Conclusion: one can only be hip in the future if one does not read at all, which is a phenomenon I am already witnessing in the media. — Martijn Benders

All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste'
'It seems big enough when you're in it, Sir.'
'And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule'
'I see,' said I at last. 'She couldn't fit into Hell. — C.S. Lewis

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well. — Thomas Piketty

As we chatted, cracking the expected jokes at Danita's expense, I thought about how Danita let her search for
the real her take a physical shape while mine seemed to be taking a more internal shape. At least with my exploration, I didn't have to worry about how I'm going to pay for it, since just like cosmetic surgery isn't covered by most insurance plans,neither is searching for your true sexuality. — LaToya Hankins

At least I'm real about who I am, bitch! You're so far in the closet you're having adventures in Narnia!" Who — Alisha Ashton

The imagined memories had to have as much weight as the real, or we had to at least pretend they did to such a degree that they just very well might have. And so I never questioned Angela about that particular story, or about all the troubling things that it pointed to, content to believe that at least in this version things worked for her better than they did in the one I never heard. — Dinaw Mengestu

I think if you're a liberal, you believe that we all are, at least to some extent, our brothers' keepers, you really believe that we have a sumptuary responsibility to make sure that life is decent for everybody in America, that you believe that society out to be broadly shared, and you believe that you can't have a real democracy unless you have a little bit, at least, of economic democracy. — Paul Krugman

The worst have scraped out the mantle of the best and wear it around as something real. It takes no genius to see that. But I moved to San Francisco because the masquerade of kindly gestures is, at least, kind. And it remains kind. And all the people who would sit back and comment on the garishness of the costumes, the hollowness of the dialogue, the lack of divine conviction, well, all those people are either dead or fifteen years old. — Jay Caspian Kang

My hair used to be real long, and my parents were encouraged when I cut it. They thought I was going 'straight,' but I was just getting weirder - at least in their eyes. I was getting into the punk thing. — Billy Idol