Quotes & Sayings About Magical Realism

The underlying melody via every rock, plant, animal, sky and star, inside the water, from the dirt, through the light: only love lasts. — Melina Sempill Watts

A TV touchstone for me is 'The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.' That series was whimsical and smart and had the mix of comedy and drama that I now trade in - but with a dash of magical realism. I wanted to be Molly Dodd, but more than that, I wanted to be Jay Tarses, who created the show. — Jenji Kohan

We write the earth we stand upon. — Laura K. Cowan

Of course, that's one of the dreams of modernist literature, whether realist or fantastic: that the more stories we tell each other about such tragedies, the fewer of them there will be. We're still waiting for the results. — Charles Finch

I wanted to kiss you for a long time, and I decided that might be my only chance. I've been miserable ever since." Troy ran his fingers along her jaw. "It was almost better when I didn't know how it felt to kiss you. — Cindi Madsen

The raft was seized, with a noise like needles knitting, and we were hemmed in for winter -- river and the old channel's oxbow lake having frozen solid. By now, we guessed we were not two ordinary river travelers...it must have been the river that was extraordinary: a marvel that protected us by the same mysterious action that had given a common horse wings and changed a woman into a laurel tree. — Norman Lock

It is easier to start a war than to end it. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The greatest happiness is a quiet kind. It's the tender understanding that we're living in a very strange place full of strange creatures. And there's quite a bit of wonder in that. — F.K. Preston

Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism. — Neil Gaiman

And he told Stink about a saint he had tempted a thousand generations ago. Satan had mocked the Enemy's ridiculous claim of omnipotence. "Does God have the power to make a rock so big that he cannot move it?" Satan asked. The saint looked at him. "Yes," he said. "And then He would pick it up. — J. Mulrooney

Dreams are memories we've lost to sleep. — F.K. Preston

Carry on the Flame to a new dawn I am with you.
~the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea — Jodine Turner

Everyone knows how to cook parasols - you soak them in milk, then dip them in egg and breadcrumbs and fry them until they're brown as chops. You can do the same thing with a panther amanita that smells of nuts, but people don't pick amanitas. They divide mushrooms into poisonous and edible, and the guidebooks discuss the features that allow you to tell the difference - as if there are good mushrooms and bad mushrooms. No mushroom book separates them into beautiful and ugly, fragrant and stinking, nice to touch and nasty, or those that induce sin and those that absolve it. People see what they want to see, and in the end they get what they want - clear, but false divisions. Meanwhile, in the world of mushrooms, nothing is certain. — Olga Tokarczuk

I wanted to give you something that would last forever. Something that would surpass the world, that would still be alive and bright even after you passed away. Something beautiful. For your eyes and smile only. But I never found it. All I could give you is words. Words which were as fleeting as the heartbeats that shook my soul whenever you looked my way. — F.K. Preston

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

For these were the days when Time was still the horizon of beauty and had not yet begun its slow inexorable destructions. — J. Mulrooney

Her beauty was ethereal, knocking on the door of the part of his psyche that still believed in magic and miracles. — D.A. Henneman

I just wanted one more day." More tears welled up in her eyes. "But it would never be enough. I could keep asking for one more day for the rest of my life. — Cindi Madsen

Now that the book is out in the world, I'm amazed all over again at what my friend did for me in prompting me to ditch realism for a more magical approach. In some ways, the Golem and the Jinni are the ultimate immigrants. They aren't just new to New York or America; they're new to people. Like those around them, they wrestle with issues of religion versus doubt and duty versus self-determination - but as inescapable aspects of their own otherworldly natures. For seven years I've lived with their questions, arguments, and adventures, and it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life. — Helene Wecker

A death in reverse is the rewinding of life. I do not die of old age,
in a bed surrounded by strangers my loved ones paid to take care of me.
I die in reverse.
I die falling back
into a younger age.
From my forty-five years to twenty-five.
To sixteen. When we were in love.
To fourteen: when we first met.
To five.
To one.
To the hospital my mother died at
from the complications of my existence.
A life for a life. — F.K. Preston

When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right ones a fighting chance- Victoria Barron- dedicated attorney and protagonist of Misplaced — SL Hulen

We prayed the moon would unstopper long enough to suck us through to the other side so we could see how dull the stars were at their backsides. — Lindsay Hunter

Everyone needs sisters. — Erin Entrada Kelly

We played with the moon all night, painting faces on its blank cheek, shining its spotlight into sleeping people's windows. But mostly we just ate the moon, stuck tongues to its surface and felt it dissolve, left chunks of its minty scalp on neighbors' doorsteps. — Jalina Mhyana

Perhaps when I was a child. Then my brain fully developed and I started thinking about the logic. The Christian life is no life for this man. I have a potent predilection for the whiskey, weed and women. I like to defile all three of them, sometimes simultaneously. But yeah, it isn't the fairytale within the bible that makes me such an infidel, I just couldn't suffer waking up early on Sundays to praise a magical being that lacks significant proof. — J.C. Wickhart

If all goes well, we will be back in time for a proper memorial service [for your father], Ben. I promise."

Ben looked up, and all the bitterness was gone from his eyes, replaced somehow by both resignation and determination.

"And if all doesn't go well?" he asked, tightening his grip on Coralee's trusting hand as he led her outside to the driveway.

Kira's flawless features morphed into something like a smile, yet wholly without happiness or humor.

"Then you'll all be meeting up with [your father] soon enough, I expect. Either that, or you shall wish it was so. — Caitlin Rush

Sleep: the moon still hasn't moved the width of a constellation since you were a girl. Since you have become a woman, the stars that stand above the halls of Palladios have not yet disappeared behind the domes of San Marco. But only since then has the world become the world. — Alexander Lernet-Holenia

I know it doesn't seem like much now, but sometimes the biggest problems are solved in bits and spurts. Solutions from the universe aren't always detailed, or direct for that matter. — D.A. Henneman

Forthwith I crush this acid lemon
Freeing myself of the malefic venom
Hither I let thee rotten
Let my curse be forgotten. — Camilla Isley

Chocolate is a kitchen witch's secret weapon. It makes friends easily, soothes troubled spirits, and is conducive to romance. When nothing else works, go with chocolate.
- Sadie Trevalyn's Book of Kitchen Witchery — Alyssa Goodnight

That, too, was in the air itself -- a whisper of apology when the smell of the soil carried. There should be pumpkins in the fields, or sunflowers, or the peppers you saw up north. Instead, it was the smell of old earth that the breezes caught, sometimes a tinge of death. Too hard to forget. — Christian Crews

If I stay here, I will be just fine. Before I shut the door, I got a box of crackers from the kitchen, so I will be fine. — Kathleen Alcala

I need to tell you a story.'

What about?

Zachariah, Zachariah, my foundling boy. 'A boy. A boxer, a fighting man. A brother. No. About brothers, sisters. Foundlings, laid-in-the-streets. Fights, fighting. A boy, it all begins with the boy. My love. A wolf. Peter and the Wolf! Oh dear! I am very crazy! Let me - I must tell you this story.'

Why?

'I'm frightened.'

Of?

'Fractals. Patterns.'

Ah, says the fish, looking at Rachel with his wise eyes. Chaos!

'Yes,' thinks Rachel. 'Chaos. Fearful symmetry.'

Go home, says the fish, flipping over, flashing in light, and diving down into the great blue sea. — Emma Richler

Demon," the woman spat onto the road. "Well, girl, thank you. I grant no one's wishes and so you mark me 'demon.' I grant no wishes and I do as I see fit to be done. I will not answer to you, girl, nor to any one of yours, but I will always look. I am not the one who turns away. — Tamara Rendell

There is nothing to me but you. I know it's pathetic but, oh darling, it's true. — F.K. Preston

Magical realism allows an artist like myself to inject layers of meaning without being obvious. In American culture, where there is freedom of expression, this approach may seem forced, unnecessary and misunderstood. But this system of communication has become very Iranian. — Shirin Neshat

I wish I could run into the world's arms. Linger within the spaces between nothing. I wish I could filter out of existence. To live quietly without dying. I wish I could be cherished by life itself. To speak and sing volumes without lying to myself. — F.K. Preston

The truth is there isn't anything to me at all. All I know is that I can't sleep well, I can't dream well and I'm quite in love with you. That's all there is to me. My greatest feature is my admiration for you. I know it's not healthy. Like my insomnia. Like my dreamless nights. You make living alright. My nightmares come when I think of a night without Valeria. That's when I realise you're dead. That's when I remember you've been gone for years. That's when I remember I'm awake. And I wait for this dream called Life to leave me to my peace once and for all and forever. — F.K. Preston

If my life was pulled into the pages of a book, there would be coffee stains and wrinkles along the lines of that narrative. Because all I can wish is that the book of my life would be well read and well loved. Living within words and the sound of writing. — F.K. Preston

But why are you giving this to me if you don't believe?"

"Because I know that you do. — Adria J. Cimino

When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind. — David Mitchell

The relentless onslaught of this stupefying imagery that pounds our inner landscapes flat, a carpet-bombing of the mind. The language of the world, that overwhelms us. — Alan Moore

To be free means always leaving ... or returning to a place where leaves never fall. — Rich Shapero

Yes, Latinos dream more. When you live in poverty, when your president is imposed upon you, when they kill someone and no one gets indicted, and when only a few get rich, of course you dream more. It's no coincidence that magic realism happens in Latin America, because for us dreams and aspirations are part of life. — Jorge Ramos

I keep dying and hoping you notice me. But you're too busy living. — F.K. Preston

All I want, oh dear friend of mine, is for you to go out with someone. Do something, even if it's not the magical, wonderful thing you had in mind. Don't sit around for one more second pining away for some fantasy that might never come along, because it might not even exist. — Lauren Morrill

I recall my life every day. I recall my sins and my acts of purity. I remind myself I was never a religious man. I remind myself that I have been dead for half of forever. I remind myself of nothing. I move along to the next minute. Next day. Next year. The earth doesn't change so much anymore. It doesn't change so quickly. With humans, the earth had to keep changing. But you can only replace a dying thing so many times before someone notices. There haven't been humans for years. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. I find myself loving their absence. The absence of humanity is the absence of violence. I love this peace. But then I remember my bones. My mind and my memories. I remember I'm human. I am the thing I detest. The creature that haunts my steps. It's my shadow I see watching me. It's my reflection in the water. I keep remembering. I live in fear. But still, I walk on. — F.K. Preston

All that is required of you is an open mind and a little patience. — F.K. Preston

She kissed him first, and all the rest followed. — Alice Hoffman

Would you teach me, Seth?'
Seth smiled and leaned back in his seat.
'You do realise, of course, that you have no idea what you ask of me?' Seth replied after a moment.
'Of course,' Christopher replied quietly. 'Could you tell me?'
'No. That is the problem you see,' Seth said. 'Magic is something you can never prepare someone for. Magic will make you, Christopher. It will find all the secret empty places of longing in you and fill them more surely than any other love. And magic will break your heart.' A slight, rather sad smile crossed Christopher's face for a moment. 'I know what you're thinking. You think your heart is already broken, you think that this crooked and winding way is the only path left for you now. But you're wrong. The heart breaks like every wave on the beach and there's a darkness you'll have to pass through that you can't even see from where you are now. — Lee Morgan

But some, a very come to the gods all on their own They find their way - long and far it is, sometimes - and they wander up to the altars, shy and clumsy and embarrassed and alone, and when they can get the words out, they say, 'Well. Here I am — Peter S. Beagle

She believed in magic - the magic of places, the magic of people, the magic of coincidences, serendipity, and fortune. She enjoyed wandering through the world with the open mind and curiosity of a four-year-old child. In her world the mystical, mythical, and magical inhabited the same space and time as the ordinary and the practical. At Bethesda Terrace, she always felt close to a source of magic and creativity. It was as if she was tapping into the place where dragons, angels, gods, sorceresses, and demons came to life. — Jamie Le Fay

So now would probably be the wrong time to tell you I rented that boxing movie with the hot guys, planning to watch it on mute?" Ashlyn asked.
"Well, as long as I'm invited to watch it with you, I see nothing wrong with that. — Cindi Madsen

I said, "Who are you really? Why are you giving people money?"
"Everybody wants money," she said, as if it were self-evident. "It makes them happy. It will make you happy, if you let it." We had come out by the heap of grass clippings, behind the circle of green grass that we called the fairy ring: sometimes, when the weather was wet, it filled with vivid yellow toadstools. — Neil Gaiman

Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation - the day before everything changed - the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life. — Olga Grushin

Realism can break a writer's heart. — Salman Rushdie

Troy smiled down at her, and her heart jumped into her throat. The lights turned his skin colors. Red, green, blue. Glimpses of every shade of Troy, and they all looked good. The song ended, and the world seemed to stop, just her and Troy, standing in the middle of the floor. — Cindi Madsen

When everything is said and done, the only thing that really matters is the quality of the soul you build during the life you're given. — Kayt C. Peck

But I can't control my dreams. I can't even remember them. For all I know I'm having the time of my life when I sleep, but I just can't remember. So I'm forced to live in a life I have no control over. A life where I'm either numb to everything or terrified of every thought that crosses my mind. If this is all just a dream, then it sure is a disappointing one.

But I still have time to try and control my dreams. I have time to try and make my dreams a reality in this waking life as well. The one bloody thing I have is time. I've got to remember that. I still have time. And despite everything, there is something reassuring about that. — F.K. Preston

Wine is bottled poetry, he thinks [...] He wonders if the poem of the circus could possibly be bottled. — Erin Morgenstern

He wishes he were a skilled poet, it would fit his chosen image perfectly; the poor, tragic, tortured artiste. But he has no talent for words, neither for paints nor music; his uselessness is tremendously total. — Curtis Ackie

He is looking down into the toilet bowl. He sees a bright shiny red ball, about the size of his fist, covered with blood and bobbing jauntily in the yellowed water. It throbs in time
with Ernest's pulse. It is his heart. — J. Mulrooney

He looked in her eyes as if trying to tell her he loved her without words. She looked back at him as if to say, I know. — David Soto Jr.

But because I do not wish to be remembered (if I will be remembered) as a self-indulgent fantasist, I'll skip the purple patch for now, however much I wish to write it. I need to make amends for my indifference, for having turned my back on the world in favor of the beauties of the way. I'll try to study cruelty (I regret my own) and render it in more familiar terms. — Norman Lock

Magical realism as a declaration in the text is usually when someone can't speak and then they must be magically reinvigorated in some way. — Fred D'Aguiar

Obviously all religions get corrupted by man. The initial ideas are interesting but once they get organized they seem to become about politics and other things and they get misinterpreted ... Have faith but do the work. Live your life right. Dont expect things to happen. Thats why Im put off by magical realism. — Matt Dillon

Few of us make any serious effort to remember what we read. When I read a book, what do I hope will stay with me a year later? If it's a work of nonfiction, the thesis, maybe, if the book has one. A few savory details, perhaps. If it's fiction, the broadest outline of the plot, something about the main characters (at least their names), and an overall critical judgment about the book. Even these are likely to fade. Looking up at my shelves, at the books that have drained so many of my waking hours, is always a dispiriting experience. One Hundred Years of Solitude: I remember magical realism and that I enjoyed it. But that's about it. I don't even recall when I read it. About Wuthering Heights I remember exactly two things: that I read it in a high school English class and that there was a character named Heathcliff. I couldn't say whether I liked the book or not. — Joshua Foer

Magical Realist writer write the ordinary as miraculous and the miraculous as ordinary. — Bruce Holland Rogers

Dreams are memories.
Memories are dreams.
But my time with you hasn't become a dream just yet.
Because the sensation of your kisses
keep me from sleep.
I'm in love,
God help me, I'm in love. — F.K. Preston

The Waverley sisters had married men as steadfast and normal as the women were mercurial and strange. — Sarah Addison Allen

Violence can read like poetry. You just have to describe the act as if you're in love with the way your characters bleed. — F.K. Preston

The strangest thing about demons is that they come to love you. As much as they try to murder the very core of you when you first meet, they become your closest companions. I never asked for this devil on my shoulder. But my eyes are burning and I'm not alone. If you see a red gaze at midheaven, look away. It's exactly as they say: hell is a hungry place. — F.K. Preston

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

magical realism? Aren't we all making shit up, — Sherman Alexie

I can't remember what I've done with my lingerie. I look in the containers under my bed, as if my sexual self has been relegated to the wrong side of the mattress. I imagine my husband's sexuality down there too, our shadow selves making love deep in our unconscious as we cuddle above the mattress as brother and sister. — Jalina Mhyana

He hadn't moved. All the crazy-hot activity in the kitchen - waitresses going in and out, cooks going back and forth, the constant thump of barbecue being hand-chopped - and he was so still. She had to quickly turn away. Staring at an Alexander man too long was like staring at the sun. The image became imprinted. You could close your eyes and still see him. — Sarah Addison Allen

Four years ago the clocks started turning back. I open my eyes and see nothing. I feel nothing below or above me. I feel the absence of things. The absence of my flesh, my bones, my body, my mind. All that is left is awareness. I see nothing but the absence of colour. It's not a black darkness. It's simply nothing. The interior of a black hole. I recall news of a black hole lingering along the edges of our solar system. All that time ago. Four years ago. When the clocks started turning back. I hear nothing. Until there is a something. A small thing. A voice. I listen. There are more voices. The sounds are human. How long has it been since I've heard a human? The sounds scratch along my now present attention. They carve into my hearing. They are horrid, wretched things. Voices screaming. Growing loud and desperate. How many voices? Billions. This is the birth of our species. We are born screaming. It's all we know to do. We have screamed for eternity. Within this empty space. — F.K. Preston

I think that it's important to try to keep reality. I think that Gabriel Garcia Marquez speaks a lot about reality in his magical realism. So I don't think we have to be hyper-realistic. But we have to understand the pressures that undergird the lives of the characters within that novel. — Walter Mosley

Jasmine shook her head. She had forgotten about the tales of the Jinn that her father warned her about. Now, being here the memories were returning like a slow and purposeful
spider. With its long, black legs the nightmares would creep into her mind each time she closed her eyes. Then, she would see through the creature's murky eyes. She would see the carcass of a deer as it lay in the glistening white. She would watch the hyena tearing at its sweated flesh, blood seeping into the snow forming warm pools of death around her feet. And in that moment, the deer shifted. It shifted into the shape of a young boy. — Shereen Malherbe

The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out. — Gore Vidal

Where do they go, these dreams of mine? Do they live? Do they die? Do they fall? Do they fly? — F.K. Preston

Is Shimmer a floor wax or a dessert topping? Is an electron a wave or a particle? Slipstream tells us that the answer is yes. — John Kessel

You know, it would be much less trouble if you were willing to bat your magic eyelashes. — Jamie Le Fay

At the end of the day, it's about the reader's attachment to and belief in the magical elements that make or break magical realism. — Tea Obreht

Music can transport you to another time with a couple of notes. It makes you feel the heartbreak or the love, right along with the singer. The right song speaks to your soul in a way nothing else can. It's magic. — Cindi Madsen

At times all you need is a bottle of fine old wine, a mellifluous piece of music playing in the background and a good book to spend the entire night in a magical bliss! — Avijeet Das

This is the beginning of a new time," Torius said, "a great moment for us. One of us has learnt the Tongue and freed a princess. I have saved him and killed the guards. No longer will we be slaves. No longer will the guards tell us what to do. No longer will we listen. We will fight till we get what we want!"
A roar exploded from the children around him.
"This is a revolution," Torius went on. "You all remember the pain that you have felt when the guards have touched you. You all know the shame we carry within us at being treated like this. No more! We will stand! — Y.K. Willemse

As you see, I bear some resentment and some scars from the years of anti-genre bigotry. My own fiction, which moves freely around among realism, magical realism, science fiction, fantasy of various kinds, historical fiction, young adult fiction, parable, and other subgenres, to the point where much of it is ungenrifiable, all got shoved into the Sci Fi wastebasket or labeled as kiddilit
subliterature. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Be selfish sometimes. Love yourself. If you always put others before you, you will find yourself feeling beaten down by the world and that will make you bitter. Don't let the world make you bitter, not when you have such a beautiful soul. — Spencer Hoshino

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. 'The Sugar Queen' involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It's full of things that could almost be true. — Sarah Addison Allen

Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself.
She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. — Oscar Wilde

I am undependable. You might get gritty contemporary with one book, science fiction, magical realism, or high fantasy with another. — Mary E. Pearson

To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. — Leslye Walton

We could scan each car for terrorists

and lovers she could lean into

my camouflage her head resting on woven trees.

When they come for her body she could run deep
into my uniform

into the forest of me
where they could never find her. — Jalina Mhyana

My creativity keeps me from starving. Humanity keeps my life mundane. Loving secures my love for life, but my imagination keeps me sane. — F.K. Preston

The closet is a closet, but it's also a rocket or a tree house. Your mind is a palace, as long as you go in the right rooms. — Erin Entrada Kelly

All around us is a nothing that stretches on for infinity. We humans can barely comprehend that. If we comprehend it we are rarely pleased. — F.K. Preston