Most Realistic Quotes & Sayings

Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both. — Criss Jami

When considering a career move, consider the most important assumptions that have to prove true and how you can swiftly and inexpensively test if they are valid. Also, remain realistic about the path ahead of you. — Clayton Christensen

Each one is different. Each project is different. Some are silly, some are not. Some are more realistic, some are not. Some are overly dramatic, some are not. You've just got to try and find the thing that's most engaging and entertaining in whatever way, shape or form, and it's different every time. — Colin Hanks

To show man the best that is in him; not the most appealing or the most amusing or even the most realistic - but the best, which is rare and common and understood by all of us in all our different ways ... to include all the others - the meanest, the cheapest, the most cowardly - as a background and a foreground for something better ... to dig in the old scum that covers us all and find something that might be a tool for a man who would use it to fashion his self-respect in a world where all those tools are buried or broken or illegal ... and finally to tell it as it is, trying to see it all and especially the best, for to miss that part is to shovel shit on men who were born in quicksand and find no novelty in the heave and smell of doom. — Hunter S. Thompson

Having a persona people recognize, it's the thing that probably gets you paid the most - but it's also the thing that virtually every actor in the world doesn't want. 'Cause, like, no one would believe me if I wanted to play something ultra-realistic, like a gangster or something. — Robert Pattinson

I don't intend to be insensitive to the victims and their families but, at the same time, as an actor, it's our job, and we are obligated to portray the characters in the most realistic way possible. — Mark Wahlberg

It's always difficult to see yourself as other people do, but I'm realistic about my appearance. I wasn't born with one of those pretty, pretty faces, so I've never been absorbed with the way I look. I just try to make the most of what I've got. — Alison Jackson

Being in control of your life and having realistic expectations about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life. — Marilu Henner

Certain directors and actors were constantly preoccupied by one problem, and apparently, one only. This was connected with the so-called German greeting, which was the method of hailing a friend by raising the right arm straight out with the hand extended at, or slightly above, the level of the shoulder. This greeting had very definite political implications; it was employed daily by millions; and the directors and actors saw no reason why it should not be one on the films in a simple and life-like fashion. They failed. Even when shown in the rushes the effect on the select and professional audience was simply to produce uncontrollable hilarity. The cinema can do a great deal. It can entrance, t can tell fairy tales, it can be realistic or surrealistic -- but it cannot portray a gesture that is false without underlining the most brutal way its basic falseness. The German cinema could not reproduce the German greeting; it was the greeting that was to blame, not the cinema. — Ernst Von Salomon

Everybody who writes about Blake begins by saying that he was a visionary. It is a vague term. All artists, even the most realistic, start with some kind of vision - that is what leads them to select what they need from the infinite diversity of appearances. — Kenneth Clark

At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They — Hanya Yanagihara

For the most part, the girls of Katwe need to be told who these people are and once they learn, they want to be just like them. For Phiona Mutesi and the other teenage girls of Katwe, there are no true female role models to follow. Nothing realistic. Nothing attainable. No solid businesswoman or stable homemaker. There is no in-between for Phiona to grab onto during a very impressionable time in her life, a time when she needs a lot of guidance about becoming an adult. — Tim Crothers

I tend to avoid melodrama. I try to create very realistic settings and very realistic experiences and realistic responses to these experiences. Melodrama is the use of really big events that may or may not happen in real life - certainly they do, but they're not events that are common to most people. Most of the things that happen in my novels are things that could happen to people in real life. — Nicholas Sparks

Because of the enormous responsibility, diabetic kids tend to grow up to be the most mature, most realistic people who have a natural desire to reach outside of themselves. — Mary Tyler Moore

Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and convention subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had any self-respect they'd be writing memoir, but they're too lazy to fact-check. Of course I never read Re-Fi. But the kids keep bringing home these garish realistic novels and talking about them, so I know that it's an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on one species, full of worn-out cliches and predictable situations--the quest for the father, mother-bashing, obsessive male lust, dysfunctional suburban families, etc., etc. All it's good for is being made into mass-market movies. Given its old-fashioned means and limited subject matter, realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience. — Ursula K. Le Guin

That wild word, "Moor Eeffoc," is the motto of all effective realism; it is the masterpiece of the good realistic principle - the principle that the most fantastic thing of all is often the precise fact. — G.K. Chesterton

The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator's primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell. — Benjamin Graham

Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. — Howard Zinn

I don't like James Bond. They made him a super hero, but he is just an agent, a human being. In my movies, secret agents are more realistic, I didn't want to portray them in the most glowing colours. — King Hu

Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries
which we long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be. — Marcel Proust

that we would receive the overwhelming message that the vast majority of adults feel they have no talent in these areas. On the other hand, if we were to conduct the same poll among 4-year-olds, we would find that virtually all of them are convinced they can sing, and virtually all of them have confidence in their ability to dance. Most of the 4-year-olds have little or no real talent, but, instead, they are endowed with incredible confidence in their own potential. This confidence, or certainty of success, is something we were all born with but we later traded in for a strong dose of what we call realism. Shortly after we reach school age, we are taught lessons about the world that revolve around us, limiting our vision and becoming realistic. — Jim Stovall

Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical. — Joey Skaggs

The most realistic blood I've seen is when Marlon Brando gets beat up in On The Waterfront. — George A. Romero

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world - no ideals. — Golda Meir

She found the company that made her favorite architectural model trees. They weren't the most realistic, they weren't even well made. She didn't like them because they evoked trees but because they evoked the sadness that trees evoke. — Jonathan Safran Foer

(after asking Christ into his heart) I waited. And then, true to His promise, He came into my heart and my life. The moment was more than remarkable; it was the most realistic experience I'd ever had. I'm not sure what I expected; perhaps my life or my sins or a great white light would flash before my eyes; perhaps I'd feel a shock like being hit by a bolt of lightning. Instead, I felt no tremendous sensation, just a weightlessness and an enveloping calm that let me know that Christ had come into my heart. — Louis Zamperini

The Theatre of the Absurd, in the sense that it is truly the contemporary theatre, facing as it does man's condition as it is, is the Realistic theatre of our time; and that the supposed Realistic theatre - the term used here to mean most of what is done on Broadway - in the sense that it panders to the public need for self-congratulation and reassurance and presents a false picture of ourselves to ourselves is ... really and truly The Theatre of the Absurd. — Edward Albee

One of the most important things I'm glad we did and am proud of is that we don't have any real grass on our property. It might not be realistic to ask people to pull out their grass, but we'll never have to think about it. We used Smart Grass, and I think it looks beautiful. — Lisa Ling

Fame had been democratized. During most of history only members of the privileged classes had possessed a realistic opportunity to achieve majestic fame, but in the eighteenth century it has been demonstrated repeatedly, by men such as Franklin, for instance, that fame might be achieved by men born into a lesser social rank. — John Ferling

Birth Control which has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science ... as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health. — Margaret Sanger

From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person. — Nicolas Sarkozy

Creativity is found in working environments where it is stimulated and encouraged. Rigid working situations are not conducive to creativity and it is realistic to say that many organizations do not even want creativity from their employees. Most are just focused on getting the job done within a tight time frame. If your company is one of these, then accept this and nurture your creative self outside of work. — Joanna Penn

Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity. — Will Smith

Women who say that they have met the most amazing guy in the world are only saying that because they haven't lived with them yet. — Heather Chapple

I read the paper every day. There are certain subjects that will catch my attention. I have an entire file of articles. Of course I make up the story, especially since most criminals are not very smart and fictional crime must be clever. I have to make sure the story I am telling is interesting and realistic. In this book I went on line and found out the manners of codes. I thought it interesting to use them as a jumping off point. — Sue Grafton

One of the cool things about ski racing is there is never a perfect run so it's hard to be satisfied in that sense, you can always go that extra step, i don't think any of us have the realistic goal of having the perfect run. Ski racing is the most variable sport out there, conditions change run-to-run, we only get one chance at it and the margin for error is tiny. — Ted Ligety

When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's deeper and more realistic is always what's appealed to me most. — Kelli O'Hara

It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming. It's easier to raise $1,000,000 than it is $100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. — Timothy Ferriss

The realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts, but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life. — Sam Harris

Democracy is the most realistic way for diverse peoples to resolve their differences, and share power, and heal social divisions without violence or repression. — Condoleezza Rice

I don't consider myself very brave in any sense. I'm interested in this kind of behavior. My job is to try to make it realistic and emotionally resonant. That's the most challenging thing, to bring emotional resonance to what you do as an actor. — Julianne Moore

Alright. Let's get realistic now. You know and I know that the function of that number was just to provide some sort of warm-up trash before we do something HEAVY. Something a little bit harder to listen to, but which is probably better for you in the LONG RUN. The item in this instance, which will be better for you in the LONG RUN, and if we only had a little more space up here we could make it visual for you, is "Some Ballet Music," which we've played at most of our concert series in Europe. Generally in halls where we had a little bit more space and Motorhead and Kansas could actually fling themselves across the stage, and give you their teenage interpretation of the art of The Ballet. I don't think it's too safe to do it here, maybe they can just hug each other a little bit and do some calisthenics in the middle of the stage. — Frank Zappa

It is a modern tragedy that one of the Soviet Union's most intelligent and realistic leaders has served and died during the administration of the most ill-informed and dangerous man ever to occupy the White House. — George McGovern

I believe the twenty-first century can become the most important century of human history. I think a new reality is emerging. Whether this view is realistic or not, there is no harm in making an effort. — Dalai Lama XIV

Your dad was in a street gang? My adopted dad was an accountant for a big Fortune 500 corporation. Him, me, and my adopted mom lived in the suburbs in an English Tudor house with a gigantic basement where he fiddled with model trains. The other dads were lawyers and research chemists, but they all ran model trains. Every weekend they could, they'd load into a family van and cruise into the city for research. Snapping pictures of gang members. Gang graffiti. Sex workers walking their tracks. Litter and pollution and homeless heroin addicts. All this, they'd study and bicker about, trying to outdo each other with the most realistic, the grittiest scenes of urban decay they could create in HO train scale in a subdivision basement — Chuck Palahniuk

A more realistic perception of our relation to others, in particular our similarities to them, injects a little humility into our self-serving biases. Admitting that we are disposable and irrelevant in the grander scheme of things may not be for everyone, but I find nothing more empowering. It should drown out your anxieties rather than inhibit your passions. Accepting your imperfections and limitations allows you to stop dwelling on past mistakes, and pushes you to enjoy making the most of every moment moving forward. — Erman Misirlisoy

The more knowledge we have about the realities of lethal illness, the more sensible we can be about choosing the time to stop or the time to fight on, and the less we expect the kind of death most of us will not have. For those who die and those who love them, a realistic expectation is the surest path to tranquillity. — Sherwin B. Nuland

The knowledge that even the most effective bullying policies of schools failed to protect a student, whose difference attracted unwanted attention and scarring comments, influenced Neha's decision to support John's choice. — Neetha Joseph

Art transcends selfish and obsessive limitations of personality and can enlarge the sensibility of its consumer. It is a kind of goodness by proxy. Most of all it exhibits to us the connection, in human beings, of clear realistic vision with compassion. The realism of a great artist is not a photographic realism, it is essentially both pity and justice. — Iris Murdoch

Rather than ask yourself if you are correct, it is far more realistic to think about how you are mistaken. Most humans have not been designed to be right very often. — Kouhei Kadono

I will not pretend I wasn't petrified. I was. But mixed in with the awful fear was a glorious feeling of excitement. Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn't be exciting if they didn't. — Roald Dahl

We go to school and teachers teach us to read and write but nobody teaches us about the purposeful commitment and intentionality it takes to make our marriages healthy and sustain love over a lifetime. Most people seem to think love should "naturally" sustain itself as it did during the beginning of our relationship with each other -but that just isn't realistic. — Cindy Wright

Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic? What's the point of being realistic? I'm going to do it. It's done. It's already done. The second I decide it's done, it's already done. — Will Smith

I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction ... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors. — Lois Lowry

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. — Anna Barnes

I set myself up for a lot of trouble by wanting to tell a story that is fairly earnest and emotional and expressive, but to do it in the most subtle, realistic way. — Adrian Tomine

The hypothesis of value realism is superfluous - a wheel that spins without being attached to anything. From a Darwinian perspective our impressions of value, if construed realistically, are completely groundless. And if that is true for our most basic responses, it is also true for the entire elaborate structure of value and morality that is built up from them by practical reflection and cultural development - just as scientific realism would be undermined if we abandoned a realistic interpretation of the perceptual experiences on which science is based. Even a system based on the maintenance of coherence or consistency among one's responses does not need the idea of mind-independent truth about value (as opposed to logic), — Thomas Nagel

Not all of E. Nesbit's children's books are fantasies, but even the most realistic somehow seem magical. In her holiday world, nobody ever goes to school, though all the kids know their English history, Greek myths, and classic tales of derring-do. — Michael Dirda

Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters. — Jack White

Most of us can only deny short-term pleasures because we see a realistic path between self-denial now and something better down the road. — David Brooks

Even though she had an overbite and the shakes, she was six feet tall and beautiful, and not like a statue or a perfume advertisement, but in a realistic way, like how a truck or a pizza is beautiful at the moment you want it most. — J. Ryan Stradal

My work is aimed at creating a world in which I wish to live. Consequently, it is about creating ideals with the aid of realistic techniques. My most fundamental motivation is a desire for unity, fusion and sense of community. — Wolfgang Tillmans

There is an exuberance in good fantasy quite unlike the most exalted moments of realistic fiction. Both forms have similar goals; but realism walks where fantasy dances. — Lloyd Alexander

Well, I think the most realistic ways to keep them [Saddam Hussien & Slobadon Milisevic] isolated in the world of public opinion and to work with our alliance is to keep them isolated. I'm just as frustrated as many Americans are that Saddam Hussein still lives. I think we ought to keep the pressure on him. I will tell you this: If we catch him developing weapons of mass destruction in any way, shape or form, I'll deal with that in a way that he won't like. — George W. Bush

Most writers' view of the New West is either phony - obsessed with the same tired mythology - or it's obsessed with anti-mythology, ... There's not a lot of realistic, observant writing about the West right now. — Walter Kirn

Beware the faces that bare the most smiles.
For they are the ones who hide the most sadness - . — A.R. Von

The Cloud of Unknowing was written by someone who was exceedingly tough-minded in the sense in which William James used the phrase. He was most unsentimental, matter of fact, and down to earth; and he regarded this habit of mind as a prerequisite for the work in which he was engaged. He proceeded upon the belief that when an individual undertakes to bring his life into relation to God, he is embarking upon a serious and demanding task, a task that leaves no leeway for self-deception or illusion. It requires the most rigorous dedication and self-knowledge. The Cloud of Unknowing is therefore a book of strong and earnest thinking. It makes a realistic appraisal of the problems and weaknesses of individual human beings, for it regards man's imperfections as the raw material to be worked with in carrying out the discipline of spiritual development. — Ira Progoff

If God is really at the center of things and God's good future is the most certain reality, then the truly realistic course of action is to buck the dominant consequentialist ethic of our age - which says that we should act only if our action will most likely bring about good consequences - and simply, because we are people who embody the virtue of hope, do the right thing. — Jen Hatmaker

One of the most revolutionary concepts to grow out of our clinical experience is the growing recognition that innermost core of man's nature - the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his 'animal nature' - is basically socialized, forward-moving, rational and realistic ... He is realistically able to control himself, and he is incorrigibly socialized in his desires. There is no beast in man, there is only man in man. — Carl Rogers

Veep is the best and most realistic political TV show out there. — Christopher Michael Cillizza

The people who do the most extraordinary things in the world are never "realistic." They're passionate. They trust themselves. — Deepak Chopra

While re-addiction is clearly a hazard for some, others achieve a realistic and lasting confidence that they've outgrown their addictions and it's time to move on. In fact, survey research published over the last thirty years indicates that most addicts eventually recover permanently.9 For them, the disease label may be an unnecessary, even harmful, burden. — Marc Lewis

When I watched American Idol, I always thought Simon was the most realistic. Simon's like, It was absolutely horrid. That's what they tell in the music industry. — Toni Braxton

Much of the colony's musical experimenting was, quite consciously, concerned with what might be called "time span." What was the briefest note that the mind could grasp - or the longest that it could tolerate without boredom? Could the result be varied by conditioning or by the use of appropriate orchestration? Such problems were discussed endlessly, and the arguments were not purely academic. They had resulted in some extremely interesting compositions. But it was in the art of the cartoon film, with its limitless possibilities, that New Athens had made its most successful experiments. The hundred years since the time of Disney had still left much undone in this most flexible of all mediums. On the purely realistic side, results could be produced indistinguishable from actual photography - much to the contempt of those who were developing the cartoon along abstract lines. — Arthur C. Clarke

Usually most characters I play are quite realistic. — Virginie LeDoyen

In order to arrive to a more realistic view of society, it must be recognized that there are individual differences that cannot be eradicated by the most rigid curriculum, and that various individuals will choose different educational curricula if allowed to do so. — Carl Eckart

In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you're doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you've still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things. — Michael Sheen

Stone houses, terrace walls, city walls, streets. Plant any rose and you hit four or five big ones. All the Etruscan sarcophagi with likenesses of the dead carved on top in realistic, living poses must have come out of the most natural transference into death they could imagine. After lifetimes of dealing with stone, why not, in death, turn into it? — Frances Mayes

They are imbeciles who call my work abstract. That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things. — Constantin Brancusi

It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don't have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It's a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it's also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun ... The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtue. — Elizabeth Gilbert

It is easy to see how quickly expectations become layered, competitive and conflicting. This is how the shame web works. We have very few realistic options that allow us to meet any of these expectations. Most of the options that we do have feel like a "double bind." When Marilyn Frye describes a double bind as "a situation in which options are very limited and all of them expose us to penalty, censure or deprivation. — Brene Brown

Let's be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. That's why I like it ... The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that's my idea of a good time. — Frank Zappa

Playing for Manchester United is something that most people want and very few people do - but there is no harm in having a dream as long as you are realistic with it. — David Gill

A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances, and to confess a conventional respectability, which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men. — John Maynard Keynes

Dennis the Menace was probably the most realistic comic book ever done. No space aliens ever invaded! — Gilbert Hernandez

There is always a realistic way to fulfill any dream. There has never been a dream that you can't have - at least, not the heart of it, not the part you love the most. — Barbara Sher

Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. — Hanya Yanagihara

Unhappiness isn't at its most acute point until a realistic chance of happiness, sufficiently close, has been envisioned. — Michel Houellebecq

The Truth part of the SET system is the most important and the most difficult for the borderline to accept since so much of his world excludes or rejects realistic consequences. — Jerold J. Kreisman

A word of warning here. The events as you remember them will never be the same in your memory once you have turned them into a memoir. For years I have worried that if I turn all of my life into literature, I won't have any real life left - just stories about it. And it is a realistic concern: it does happen like that. I am no longer sure I remember how it felt to be twenty and living in Spain after my parents died; my book about it stands now between me and my memories. When I try to think about that time, what comes to mind most readily is what I wrote. — Judith Barrington

When I see myself in the videogame it's amazing how realistic I look. This is the most authentic and realistic soccer game I have ever seen. It is like I'm looking in a mirror. The attention to detail is incredible. — Claudio Reyna

Many people love grey squirrels, but the reality is that they are a real problem for some of our most threatened native species, like the red squirrel and dormouse. It is not realistic, practical or even desirable to completely eradicate grey squirrels, but we must control them effectively. — Jim Knight