Keeps It Real Quotes & Sayings

Reality, for all intents and purposes, is just life - the real world, pure and uncut, shot straight to the vein of our souls every day we draw breath. Whether it's good or bad, it's still reality; the opposite of illusion, the foe of fantasy, and the anchor that keeps us stuck on this plane. And thank Buddha it does, because some people need it in huge doses. — Corey Taylor

The Bible tells you that real peace is found in resting in the wisdom of the One who holds all of your "what-ifs" and "if-onlys" in his loving hands. Isaiah captures this well with these comforting words: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you" (Isa. 26:3). Real, sturdy, lasting peace, peace that doesn't rise and fall with circumstances, isn't to be found in picking apart your life until you have understood all of the components. You will never understand it all because God, for your good and his glory, keeps some of it shrouded in mystery. So peace is found only in trust, trust of the One who is in careful control of all the things that tend to rob you of your peace. — Paul David Tripp

The real explanation of this failure of Hindu-Muslim unity lies in the failure to realize that what stands between the Hindus and Muslims is not a mere matter of difference, and that this antagonism is not to be attributed to material causes. It is formed by causes which take their origin in historical, religious, cultural and social antipathy, of which political antipathy is only a reflection. These form one deep river of discontent which, being regularly fed by these sources, keeps on mounting to a head and overflowing its ordinary channels. Any current of water flowing from another source however pure, when it joins it, instead of altering the colour or diluting its strength becomes lost in the main stream. The silt of this antagonism which this current has deposited, has become permanent and deep. So long as this silt keeps on accumulating and so long as this antagonism lasts, it is unnatural to expect this antipathy between Hindus and Muslims to give place to unity. — B.R. Ambedkar

There is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest. — Shawn Anthony Levy

Being others-focused instead of self-focused changes your worldview. Living in a selfless manner and seeking to help others enriches our very existence on a daily basis. Get your hands dirty once in a while by serving in a capacity that is lower than your position or station in life. This keeps you tethered to the real world and grounded to reality, which should make it harder to be prideful and forget where you came from. — Miles Anthony Smith

She keeps her eyes closed but smiles, giving herself away. "Shush, I'm having a dream." "It's not a dream. It's all real." "How would you know? You're not even in it." She feels playful, heavy with happiness. With rightness. "I'm in all of them," he says. "It's where I live now. — Laini Taylor

I keeps it real nothing. Like you actors do — Wiz Khalifa

The thing I've noticed about life-' Zoe pauses to drain the last of her coffee and lick the foam off her lips, 'is that it just keeps coming at you. And it can be a real bummer. What you need to remember, Tiff, is that you're not alone. You've got friends and family. That's how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in the dark, even when we're scared - no, especially when we're scared.'
Wow. Reggie would be impressed. She's as good as Dr Phil. And not bald. — Bill Condon

Time is, to put it in its most impressive and some might say poncy-sounding form, my domain. I can see things that once happened, even if they haven't happened any more. Well, if I concentrate. The new reality-the real reality- keeps asserting itself, even with me. But the other time line leaves echoes, ripples, if you look hard enough. — Jacqueline Rayner

If Jesus regarded it as important the blessing that comes to one who voluntarily renders help, then the churches have been right in presenting the claims of philanthropy as on of the most important of religious obligations. For one thing, this obligation keeps us sensitive and aware toward an important aspect of our environment --- other peoples needs. Secondly, this is a rightful stewardship of ones own property, and it is the antithesis of the practice whereby one man volunteers another mans property for use in alleviating some real of imagined distress --- as in various schemes of social security. — Edmund A. Opitz

When young, we're anxious - understandably - to find out if we've got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you - in particular you, of this generation - may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can ...
And this is actually O.K. If we're going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously - as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.
Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended. — George Saunders

I focus on my favorite daydream, the one where I return from London at the end of the summer and am all glamorous and drop-dead gorgeous and every girl in my school is completely jealous when Quinn McKeyan asks me to Fall Homecoming because he can't resist my charm.
Hey, it's my daydream. I can dream what I want to.
The thing is, Quinn's face keeps getting replaced in my head by Dante's.
Since I've had a mad crush on Quinn from the time we started kindergarten all the way through our junior year last year, that's saying something.
Every daydream I've had for eleven years has been of him. I'm a very loyal daydreamer. And I suddenly feel like I'm cheating on my imaginary boyfriend, a boy who happens to be real, but who has been dating my best friend Becca for the past two years. And no. Becca has no idea that I'm secretly in love with her boyfriend. It's the one secret that I've kept from her. — Courtney Cole

The real message of Christmas is not the gifts that we give to each other. Rather, it is a reminder of the gift that God has given to each of us. It is the only gift that truly keeps on giving. — Greg Laurie

To whom it may concern: please phone me for appointments when you want to see me. I will not answer unsolicited knocks upon the door. I need time to do my work. I will not allow you to murder my work. please understand that what keeps me alive will make me a better person toward and for you when we finally meet under easy and unstrained conditions. — Charles Bukowski

Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward. — Ben Affleck

Money fascinates me... It has the power to make and break nations... It determines a person's quality of life and limits us as a race what we're capable of accomplishing, yet it has no true value other than what we've placed on it. It's a man-made concept, yet it holds us back, keeps us from achieving well, everything. Peace. Equality. Just think of the scientific discoveries we've had to forgo because of a lack of funding. And it's all made up. none of it's real. — S.L. Madden

Money's just an idea, it has power. Only it's not real power. Just the promise of power. But that promise is enough so long as everyone keeps pretending it's real. Stop pretending and it all falls apart. — Steven Erikson

I like the idea that within the structure of the song, some kind of built-in improvisation keeps them fragile and in their moment, so that I'm not projecting so much, so that my perception of the song doesn't interfere with what its real body is. Sometimes it's like telling a story that I heard in passing, and I don't want it to become completely mine. — Ryan Adams

Widen your vision of what beauty is. Realize and keep close the fact that a beauty standard has been created by the very people who sell it, and that it is no accident that the accepted "beauty standard" can easily be described as "perfect." Flaws are not tolerated if you want to be perfect. But the models that we see most often--even the tallest and thinnest and most doe-eyed--are still pinned and sprayed and pulled into place. Then they are manipulated digitally until, literally, everything that might be perceived as a "flaw" is erased. This is a way to sell product. It has nothing to do with real life. It has nothing to do with you. We are made of so-called "flaws." They are the thread that stitches our parts together and keeps us from being generic cut-out paper dolls. You are beautiful. You are enough, now and always. You have always been enough. — Lindsey Gates-Markel

I don't understand, Your Majesty."
"Of course you don't; you academics!" Skarmak snarled. "All you do is sit in your towers, trying to think your way into a reality that exists only in your own minds, and then you judge the world as wrong because it does not conform to your impossible standards. I live in a real world, academic. And it's my real world that keeps pumping blood into your dead, idealistic one. — Tracy Hickman

I have this dream where Little Chino keeps showing up at my door. I would have to kill him even though I was at home trying to have a nice meal with my family. Every time he (Chino) would come to the door, I'm like, 'you again!' But I was myself (not Dexter) in the dream. I'm rolling my eyes in the dream because it is so absurd. It was like, this is ridiculous because you (Chino) are not even real! — Michael C. Hall

For me, it's a multitude of things. In the modern world, there's a real genuine fear of loss of individuality and I think the undead speak to that. I also think the idea of the dead coming back to life, and this unstoppable foe that just keeps coming and coming, but rather slowly just chases you, is a real primal fear. It's like a fear of claustrophobia, heights or water. — Paul W. S. Anderson

Judgement of others and ourselves always comes from a place of fear. It is fear that keeps us from living authentically all that we say we value. — Shannon L. Alder

The old vacuum cleaner keeps dying on her
over and over
until at last the cleaning woman
scares it by yelling:
"Motherfucker! — Lydia Davis

Everybody has a Big Momma: the mother or the grandmother who tells it like it is, keeps it real with them, isn't afraid to tell you the truth about yourself. — Martin Lawrence

It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it. — Alexander McCall Smith

It's slow poison; you make them believe it's real, and it keeps them coming back for more. — Tarryn Fisher

He says softly, "I don't just want you in my dreams, baby. Been wanting you a long while."
fiddle sticks
I whisper, "Niki."
He puts his lips close to mine and breathes deep, "You're all I think about." I feel the tingles start in my in my nose. A sure sign I'm going to bawl. "Stop."
But he just keeps coming with the sweet, "I thought I needed a woman like you. Turns out I just needed you."
My breath hitches. "Stop."
What he says next melts my frozen heart.
"You're it, Tina."
I no longer have doubts
My heart skips a beat and I whisper fiercely, "I want to kiss you. Real bad. — Belle Aurora

Attention is a bit like real estate, in that they're not making any more of it. Unlike real estate, though, it keeps going up in value. — Seth Godin

Then do it. Do this thing with me. For real." For keeps. That wish he kept tight inside his chest, not ready to trust it with breath yet. — Annabeth Albert

No one wants to carry someone when they're heavy from life. I read a book about that once. A bunch of drivel about two people who kept coming back to each other. The lead male says that to the girl he keeps letting get away. I had to put the book down. No one wants to carry someone when they're heavy from life. It's a concept smart authors feed to their readers. It's slow poison; you make them believe it's real, and it keeps them coming back for more. Love is cocaine. — Tarryn Fisher

The universe of his own feelings keeps crowding everyone else's out. It is a constant struggle to see other people as people, rather than as denizens of a dimension one level below the one in which he's doomed to wander, imperially alone. That someone close to him might right now be awake in a different part of the city, feeling a pain every bit as real as his own . . . he can think it, but cannot seem to remember it. And is 'remember' even the right word for something for which you have zero empirical evidence? Postulate, maybe. Imagine. He sweeps the lens back toward the window, where the cat hasn't stirred. Her tail twitches. An idea threatens to form, but doesn't. — Garth Risk Hallberg

The thing I've noticed about life is that it just keeps coming at you. And it can be a real bummer. What you need to remember is that you're not alone. You've got friends and family. That's how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in the dark, even when we're scared - no, especially when we're scared. — Bill Condon

As I try to remember myself, I see where my wish comes from. It is from my ordinary "I." So long as the impulse comes from the possessiveness at the core of my personality, it will not bring the freedom necessary for a perception that is direct. When I see this . . . I have the impression of being a little freer. . . . But I wish to keep this freedom, and the way I wish comes again from possessiveness. It is like finding freedom from the influence only to fall back under it again, as though following a movement inward toward the more real and then a movement outward away from the real. If I am able to observe and live this, I will see that these two movements are not separate. They are one and the same process. And I need to feel them like the ebb and flow of a tide, with a keen attention that does not let itself be carried away and that, by its vision, keeps a balance. — Jeanne De Salzmann

In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. — Alice Walker

You're so worried that you can't ever be close to anyone, but it's not the face blindness that's to blame; it's you. All the smiling and the faking and pretending to be what you think people want you to be. That's what keeps you isolated. That's what screws you up. You need to try being a real person. — Jennifer Niven

Blake Lively is my style icon, and she always has rocking clothes and shoes. She keeps it really simple with hair and makeup, and I try to do the same thing. Onstage, I do a little smokier, a little more contouring, but I still always want to be an approachable and real artist, so I never try to go overboard. — Kelsea Ballerini

As an athlete, you'll never feel bad about losing, but what you will feel bad about is underperforming. That's a real thing and it happens a lot when we don't live up to our potential. And that keeps you up at night and can give you years and years of regret. It could be a relationship, it could be a homework assignment, or it could be an athletic competition. If you don't go out and perform to the best of your ability, it will really bother you. — Chael Sonnen

I keep moving through time and time keeps moving through me. And through that process, life takes shape. The question is what shape it is. I'm not the first person to ask that question, or to see how absurd it is to think there's a real answer. Maybe life's a circle ... — Questlove

I submit that the real reason we criticized and disliked Lynch's Laura's muddy bothness is that it required of us an empathetic confrontation with the exact same muddy bothness in ourselves and our intimates that makes the real world of moral selves so tense and uncomfortable, a bothness we go to the movies to get a couple hours' fucking relief from. — David Foster Wallace

Music is not a fucking soda. It is not a fucking insurance rate. It is not a fucking T-shirt. It is the only real religion that is worth devoting your soul to. It is the last remnant of the primal scream, the funeral dirge, and the wedding march. It is the light that keeps me out of the shadows, and it is the reason my immortal soul is not in dire straits. — Corey Taylor

Turns out that a real-estate agent keeps her own home on the market an average of ten days longer and sells it for an extra 3-plus percent, or $10,000 on a $300,000 house. — Steven D. Levitt

The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring. — Neil Peart

Ah darling, goodness, I think, never brought any one out. Goodness, when it's real, precisely, rather keeps people IN. — Henry James

I wouldn't know what to do with [colour]. Colour to me is too real. It's limiting. It doesn't allow too much of a dream. The more you throw black into a colour, the more dreamy it gets ... Black has depth. It's like a little egress; you can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you're afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream. — David Lynch

The ego suffers By resisting pain. The Soul learns By metabolizing it. The ego believes It will die. The Soul knows It returns to Eternal Reality. The ego ages in linear time. The Soul becomes radiant- And wise. The ego is isolated and feels alone. The Soul knows it is part Of something much Bigger. The ego lives stressed. The Soul relaxes into life. The ego is addicted to drama To grow more of itself. The Soul lives with peace of mind. The ego may know that enlightenment Is not real but keeps trying to grasp it. The Soul knows that a new enlightenment Comes with each lesson Of each problem that life brings us. The ego suffers. The Soul celebrates. ego and Soul have one thing in common: When they are in action They grow more of themselves. It's our choice Every single time. — Barbara Harris Whitfield

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.
When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.
It's like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable. — Mark Nepo

I have long argued that paying down the national debt is beneficial for the economy: it keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be and frees savings to finance increases in the capital stock, thereby boosting productivity and real incomes. — Alan Greenspan

And once it's reached that point, I'm left as alone as I've always known is the safest I could ever be. Except that I have the worst pain I've ever felt, and I feel it all. It's all of mine to feel. The only thing I'm sure is absolutely real. It keeps me company. The same way it would be trapped somewhere with someone that you hate. Wishing they weren't there, but needing them to be there. This is where the old survival skills start coming back, not quite as at my command as they used to be. They tell me to keep my right amount of distance, the only real way to be strong. But then I realize those parts of me that have been pieced together and have come back, to different degrees. Their revival works against survival. I know how to make myself untouchable. But when I tell myself how to, something answers me by telling me it's too late for that. — Ashly Lorenzana

It's only that the answers in most stories are boring because they are supplied by the real world rather than, well, something better. Something more stimulating. Sit down with the Greeks and the Romans, and the boring answers get more interesting. Seasons because a girl and a crocus. Death because a girl and an apple. The moon because a girl keeps driving her daft chariot into the sea.
It's all down to girls, one way or another. — Catherynne M Valente

No one should be allowed to stop in one place any longer than necessary. A man isn't a tree, and being settled in one place is his misfortune. It saps his courage, breaks his confidence. When a man settles down somewhere, he agrees to any and all of its conditions, even the disagreeable ones, and frightens himself with the uncertainty that awaits him. Change to him seems like abandonment, like a loss of an investment: someone else will occupy his domain, and he'll have to begin again. Digging oneself in marks the real beginning of old age, because a man is young as long as he isn't afraid to make new beginnings. If he stays in the same place, he has to put up with things, or take action. If he moves on, he keeps his freedom; he's ready to change places and the conditions imposed on him. — Mesa Selimovic

Real, sturdy, lasting peace, peace that doesn't rise and fall with circumstances, isn't to be found in picking apart your life until you have understood all of the components. You will never understand it all because God, for your good and his glory, keeps some of it shrouded in mystery. — Paul David Tripp

Games are not so bad because the adrenalin keeps you going, but training on a daily basis when every time you move it hurts, that is a real battle. — John Terry

I love Morocco - it's a real challenge to all five senses. You think you know something, and you don't. It's wonderful. It keeps you on your toes that way. — Amy Ryan

We are so busy and obsessed with our restless thinking about everything and everyone that we have mistaken our thinking about everything and everyone for everything and everyone. This tendency to take our thoughts to be real is what keeps the dream state intact and keeps us trapped within its domain of unconsciousness and strife. To many people the very idea that what is is more real than all of their beliefs and opinions about what is is hard to believe. But that's how it is when you are caught up in a dream. — Adyashanti

Human activity is destroying the natural systems that we depend upon for our survival. Our most basic instinct as humans is to survive; yet we continue to destroy our life-support machine. Connected humans understand this terrible contradiction; disconnected humans are not able to.

Not all humans are responsible: just those who are part of Industrial Civilization. Industrial Civilization depends on economic growth and the unsustainable use of natural resources, so it has developed a complex set of tools for keeping people disconnected from the real world and living a life that keeps civilization running. Humans have been manipulated in order to be part of a destructive system.

The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization. — Keith Farnish

No one's better than me. I'm not better than anyone. Whether it's Eric Clapton or BB King we look straight at each other. And that keeps it real. — Carlos Santana

I tried to find a way to go on. I could see familiar traces of the path that was my life, but there was always the wall behind me. Do you know what I mean? First you try and climb, pretending it never happened, but it's too tall. Then you try to go around, thinking you can fix it, but it is too far. Then, in frustration, you beat on it with your hands, but it does nothing, so you tire and sit down and just stare at it. You stare because you can't bring yourself to walk away. Walking away means that you're giving up, abandoning them.
"There is no way back. There is only forward. It's impossible to imagine there's any reason to move ahead, but that isn't the real reason you give up. The real fear
the terror that keeps you rooted
is that you might be wrong."
Myron, Monk of Maribor — Michael J. Sullivan

The only private language I know is self-exaggeration. I think I've grown a second self in this room. It's the self-important fool that keeps the writer going. I exaggerate the pain of writing, the pain of solitude, the failure, the rage, the confusion, the helplessness, the fear, the humiliation. The narrower the boundaries of my life, the more I exaggerate myself. If the pain is real, why do I inflate it? Maybe this is the only pleasure I'm allowed. — Don DeLillo

I try to be rational and suppress the hope that this is for real, but hope has a way of closing its eyes to reason and it just keeps growing. — Tammara Webber

Marriage is a totally different phenomenon: it is the climax of love. Then it is good. I am not against marriage - I am for the REAL marriage. I am against the false, the pseudo, that exists. But it is an arrangement. It gives you a certain security, safety, occupation. It keeps you engaged. Otherwise, it gives you no enrichment, it gives you no nourishment. — Rajneesh

The typical worker who through the whole of his life ... pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquility ... It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. — Adam Smith

Real men are told, "I'm sorry, I'm not interested" or "I have a friend who is single that I would like to introduce you to" when they are rejected. That is pretty much it. No dramatic scenes, no broken hearts, no agonizing pain or suffering to keep them awake at night. It just happens, life goes on, they meet another woman, and she keeps them awake at night. — W. Anton

It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born ... Some call me the Elder Granny, others - the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories. — Hans Christian Andersen

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver. — Garrison Keillor

We're going to be married and hardly touch each other and have to work and work and never have any fun and we're just going to be okay with it because that's how life is and that's how relationships go, but I don't want that. I want our marriage to be ... fun. I love joking around while we fool around. I want to hold hands everywhere we go. I want to make out in the back of a movie theater, steal kisses in coffee shops, have sex over every inch of our apartment or house or wherever we live. And I'm scared marriage will change the fun part of our relationship. The part that keeps us young, keeps us in love, and I'm terrified you'll wake up when you're fifty and realize you're stuck with the decision you made when you were twenty-seven, and we haven't touched in months, we don't go out. I just want to know when that happens ... that you'll still ... you'll still love me. — Cassie Mae

Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart's revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self's own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self. — Jonathan Franzen

Living in New York, for me at least, just keeps it very real and keeps my feet firmly planted on the ground. — Tamara Tunie

The real thing that keeps men and women apart, is fear. Women blame men and men blame women, but the culprit is fear, women are afraid of one thing, men are afraid of a different thing; the fears of women have to do with losing while the fears of men have to do with not being good enough for something. One is loss, the other is insecurity. Men are innately more insecure than women and women are innately more needful of companionship than men. It's good for both men and women to be able to recognize and identify these fears not only within themselves, but within each other, and then men and women will see that they really do need to help each other. It's not a game, it's not a competition, the two sexes need one another. — C. JoyBell C.

Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don't even realise that what you're choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won't pan out till you're sixty and staring at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun. — Catherynne M Valente

I'm up there trying to do my Chore. I've got the men's bathroom. There's something ... Pat there's something in the toilet up there. That won't flush. The thing. It won't go away. It keeps reappearing. Flush after flush. I'm only here for instructions. Possibly also protective equipment. I couldn't even describe the thing in the toilet. All I can say is if it was produced by anything human then I have to say I'm worried. Don't even ask me to describe it. If you want to go up and have a look, I'm 100% confident it's still there. It's made it real clear it's not going anywhere. — David Foster Wallace

That's the worst ... or the best ... of real life, Anne. It won't let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable ... and succeeding ... even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic. — L.M. Montgomery

But if it is love, real love, then I want them to find each other. Because I believe that love is an overwhelming, all-consuming force, and when it's genuine you can't really ignore it. No matter how long it takes. It knocks down your door by force. It keeps you awake at night. It plagues your thoughts and burn your soul. If it is love, they won't need me at all. By telling my daughter that the man of her dreams loves her too, would I not be getting in the way? Meddling with fate? — Jessica Thompson

Make each feature work hard to be implemented. Make each feature prove itself and show that it's a survivor. It's like "Fight Club". You should only consider features if they're willing to stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.
That's why you start with no. Every feature request that comes in to us - or from us - meets a no. We listen but don't act. The initial response is "not now". If a request for a feature keeps coming back, that's when we know it's time to take a deeper look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature for real. — 37 Signals

A church without symbols, a church without baptism or communion where only the real things mattered and where the atonement must be as real as the sin itself, where for instance if you broke a playmate's toy in anger you must go home immediately and fetch a toy of your own, of as good or better quality, and give it to that playmate for keeps and then announce your error at Public Amending on Sunday. — Anne Tyler

One of the things I love about books is being able to define and condense certain portions of a character's life into chapters. It's intriguing, because you can't do this with real life. You can't just end a chapter, then skip the things you don't want to live through, only to open it up to a chapter that better suits your mood. Life can't be divided into chapters ... only minutes. The events of your life are all crammed together one minute right after the other without any time lapses or blank pages or chapter breaks because no matter what happens life just keeps going and moving forward and words keep flowing and truths keep spewing whether you like it or not and life never lets you pause and just catch your fucking breath.
I need one of those chapter breaks. I just want to catch my breath, but I have no idea how. — Colleen Hoover

I'll tell you if you tell me," I say, washing my hands of maturity. I'm tired of the double standard-she keeps secrets, but I'm not allowed. Also, I'm tired, period. I need sleep. Which means I need answers.
"What do you mean? Tell you what?"
"I'll tell you what we were really doing out there. After you tell me who my real parents are." There, I opened it. A chunky can of wiggling worms.
She laughs, just like I expect her to. "Are you serious?"
I nod. "I know I'm adopted. I want to know how. Why. When."
She laughs again, but there's something false in it, as if it wasn't her first reaction. "So that's what this is about? You're rebelling because you think you're adopted? Why on earth would you think that?"
I fold my hands in front of me on the table. "Look at me. We both know I'm different. I don't look like you or Dad."
"That's not true. You have my chin and mouth. And there's no disinheriting the McIntosh nose. — Anna Banks

Lewis Mumford was not a planner, but he wrote eloquently of planning. It was a difficult task. Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention. — Richard White

It's difficult to find a person who can accept the truth consistently and more when it is related to him only and that's what keeps the difference between the real talk and the negative talk very marginal. — Anuj

Increasingly she's finding it harder to tell the 'real' NYC from translations like Zigotisopolis ... as if she keeps getting caught in a vortex taking her farther back in time into the virtual world. Certainly unforeseen in the original business plan, there arises now a possibility that DeepArcher is about to overflow out into the perilous gulf between screen and face. — Thomas Pynchon

People have their own reasons for dying. It might look simple, but it never is. It's just like a rock. What's above ground is only a small part of it. But if you start pulling, it keeps coming and coming. The human mind dwells deep in darkness. Only the person himself knows the real reason, and maybe not even then. — Haruki Murakami

Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track ... Chronos is the world's time. Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best ... Kairos is Spirit's time. We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That's our duality. Chronos requires speed so that it won't be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we're allowed to be ... It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

Soon he was picturing little girls with mischievous green eyes and pigtails asking him to play tea. Of course he'd bring real food to the tea party. None of that pretend food bullshit for his little girls.
By the time Haley had stopped for breakfast he'd been calmer about everything. He'd already decided to ignore that breakup nonsense. It was just ridiculous and he knew sooner or later Haley would realize that so they could get started on making their all girl baseball team. — R.L. Mathewson

We all say we hate being misunderstood and how we desperately want to find people who understand us. But it is not lack of compatible people that keeps us lonely. There is no shortage of people on your journey. The real, secret obstacle that we have against finding authentic, genuine relationships with people is our subconscious fear of growth. If we stick around in the bin of broken toys playing the queen or the king, at least we get to feel some sense of accomplishment at being the most evolved person we know. To find our tribe means finding people we can learn from, people who are better at some things than we are, people who have something to teach. We say we want it, but how many of us fear being a beginner more than loneliness and much more than being in the wrong crowd? There is a strange comfort, a sense of safety, to suffering and loneliness. To be happy, to find our family, we must be willing to let that go. — Vironika Tugaleva

I don't want you to be free from something, I simply want you to be free. See the difference: Freedom from is never total; that "from" keeps it entrapped with the past. Freedom from can never be real freedom. Neither can freedom for ever be real freedom; that is a search for a new slavery. — Osho

The movie Mr. Nobody examines the core belief that we can find happiness if we make the right choices in life. We can't; it's impossible. But the belief that we have real choices that can bring us what we want is cherished by the ego because it keeps us locked into a never-ending quest of looking for happiness where it can't be found. Mr. Nobody demonstrates that all the choices of this world are made because we have forgotten God and therefore believe in an illusory world of duality. None of our choices are real because they are a choice between the images of this made-up world; that is, a choice between illusions. They are nothing more than hypotheticals, which serve as meaningless distractions. — David Hoffmeister

Her true heart, however, was buried so far inside her, so gone beneath the vast blanket of her lies and deceptions and whims. Like her jewels now beneath the snow, it lay hidden until some thaw might some to it. She had no way of knowing, of course, whether this heart she imagined herself to have was, in fact, real in any way. Perhaps it was like the soldier's severed arm that keeps throbbing for years, or like a broken bone that aches at the approach of a storm. Perhaps the heart she imagined was one she had never really had at all. But how did they do it, those women she saw on the street, laughing with their charming or their ill-tempered children in restaurants, in train stations, everywhere around her? Any why was she left out of the whole sentimental panorama she felt eddying around her every day of her life? — Robert Goolrick

Just be yourself. As an actor, you pretend all day - that's what the job calls for. So, when it comes to my personal life, a woman who keeps it real is a breath of fresh air. — Justin Chon

The Bible's solution to a bad marriage is a reorientation to the radical, spousal love of Christ communicated in the gospel. "You shall not commit adultery" (Exod 20:14) makes sense in the context of his spousal love, especially on the cross, where he was completely faithful to us. Only when we know this sacrificial, spousal love of Christ will we have real fortitude to combat lust. His love is fulfilling, so it keeps us from looking to sexual fulfillment to give us what only Jesus can. — Timothy Keller

It has always been a peculiarity of the human race that it keeps two sets of morals in stock-the private and the real, and the public and the artificial. — Mark Twain

It is saying these things that keeps us from falling apart. And maybe by imagining these futures we can make them real, and maybe not, but either way we must imagine them. The light rushes out and floods in. — John Green

We are not consumers. For most of humanity's existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food.
We are not addicts. "I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity." We are not passive couch potatoes either. "It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages ... . We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed ... to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive." We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity's purpose as well. — Matthew Fox

The ground keeps changing."
He gave her arm a gentle pinch. "Do you still think this is a dream?"
"All dreams change," said Saffron. "That's how you know they're dreams."
"So does reality," he replied. "That's how you know it's real. — Foz Meadows

The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody — Bruce Springsteen