Romanticize Quotes & Sayings

I always tell people I romanticize about doing something simple, like doing radio in northern California. — Craig Kilborn

They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist ... he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love ... poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point. — Truman Capote

She gave a shiver, and suddenly clutched her arms about her body. She spoke, Gascoigne thought, with an exhilarated fatigue, the kind that comes after the first blush of love, when the self has lost its mooring, and, half-drowning, succumbs to a fearful tide. But addiction was not love; it could not be love. Gascoigne could not romanticize the purple shadows underneath her eyes, her wasted limbs, the dreamy disorientation with which she spoke; but even so, he thought, it was uncanny that opium's ruin could mirror love's raptures with such fidelity. — Eleanor Catton

Funny isn't it, that such a large percentage of people believe in the possibility of ghosts yet scoff at stories about then; whereas less than a fifth of one percent think there actually may be vampires, yet glamorize and romanticize them into millions of dollar of sales. Perhaps the real irony is that the thought of ghosts is just a little too close to people's comfort level. — D.L. Koontz

America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the "tough guy;" today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive. — Ellen Glasgow

We shouldn't romanticize rejection. There's nothing romantic about rejection. It's horrible. — Marlon James

People tend to romanticize this job. So, it's fun to let the air out of it. — Kevin Smith

You really romanticize the white-trash period of your life,' Rain once said to me, which I thought was a little hurtful but perhaps true. — Dan Chaon

Keep going even when the going is slow and uncertain.
Make your dream your prayer and your service.
Don't wait for recognition. Let it find you working.
Romanticize authenticity instead of perfection. — G.G. Renee Hill

It's easy to romanticize the people in our lives that mean something to us. We elevate them onto a higher plane that the rest of humanity. They appear glorious and pristine and full of wonders of the Universe all wrapped up into one person-sized box waiting to be unpacked. It's easy to forget, when they appear perfect in every way and in every facet of their lives with every action they take, in the end they are still human. And we duly forget being human comes with an inherent composition of flaws in our genetic and mental make-up. — August Clearwing

One does not need to romanticize a task in order to do it well. — Joanna Shupe

Those who romanticize war often like to think of it, at least in areas of mortal peril, as nothing but "guts and glory." Those who are inclined to pacifism, by contrast, often think of it as an unbroken sequence of horrors. Actually, however, people in wartime still fall in love, do the laundry, worry about pimples, drink beer, and do most of the same things that they do in times of peace. The patterns of daily life may be mundane, but they are remarkably tenacious.
But, while people in wartime still go about their daily routines, the prospect of imminent death can give even quotidian chores a heightened intensity. When the first bombs were dropped on London in autumn of 1940, the population bore adversity better than almost anybody had expected. The danger was mixed with excitement, and the terror had a sort of apocalyptic magnificence. — Boria Sax

To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite. — Novalis

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel. — David Mamet

I usually begin a poem in longhand. I like to sit where I have a nice view, ideally, although I worked on haiku this weekend at an airport. I'm not one to romanticize inspiration. I try to get to the work. — Pat Mora

We romanticize the past with an illusion that we'd know how we'd fit. — Robin Weigert

When you talk about revolution, it's very easy to romanticize picking up a gun or marching in the street, but I think before we take any of those actions, violence of course being the last one, we first have to have a revolution of the mind. — Immortal Technique

The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it) ... But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize that God made it and it deserves respect because he made it as a tree. Christians who do not believe in the complete evolutionary scale have reason to respect nature as the total evolutionist never can, because we believe that God made these things specifically in their own areas. So if we are going to argue against evolutionists intellectually, we should show the results of our beliefs in our attitudes. The Christian is a man who has a reason for dealing with each created thing on a high level of respect. — Francis A. Schaeffer

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland. — Alexander McQueen

It's typical for some who've been through combat to romanticize it, — J.D. Robb

See, I'm the worst breed of human. Let me explain. Some people are dead inside. They go through life knowing this, and they manage fine enough, because, well, they're dead inside. They aren't bitter because they don't care enough to change. They just try to get by with the things they can control. Others live in the fucking clouds, watch romantic comedies, and dream about everything being perfect one day. These people are always fine because they have an everlasting well of hope inside them, and no matter what happens they'll just romanticize their existence.
But when it comes to me ... I'm someone who's mostly dead inside but still has a little hope for something extraordinary, which, as I said, is the worst breed of human, because it means that I know everything is bullshit, but that I secretly hope for the day when it might not be. The tension makes me wish I were just completely dead inside. It would makes things much easier for me. — Nick Miller

I didn't realize how much of a Hoosier or a Midwesterner I was until I moved to New York. It's weird
growing up in Indiana, I wanted to get out, and now I completely romanticize Indiana. It just seems like there's a greater focus on family back there, which I suppose is something that kind of stayed with me. — Jim Gaffigan

There's a lot of talk about the positive aspects of love. We as a society downplay the danger, the anxiety, and the disappointment. We romanticize romance. — Helen Fisher

Death wasn't something to romanticize. It was something to stave off, to avoid, to fight as long as possible. Even though she had her battles with melancholy, she never seriously considered suicide. Something in her trusted that there would be an upswing and it would be worth waiting for. — Meredith Marple

The laughter in response to my question unmasked the double standard our deconstructionists espouse. And that is precisely the double standard of atheism! It is possible to dress up and romanticize our bizarre experiments in social restructuring while disavowing truth or absolutes. But one dares not play such deadly games with the foundations of good thinking. — Ravi Zacharias

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job. — Chris Kyle

So many people romanticize writing. And I get it. But I never once wanted to be a writer. — Rory Freedman

I try to be even-handed and fair-minded about my view of history. I don't romanticize one side and demonize the other, though I do think that if you're suffering a lot, especially in the Bob Marley sense, suffering becomes a kind of university out of which you'll learn some hard lessons. — Fred D'Aguiar

We mustn't romanticize suffering. It can turn people bitter and hard, although it does seem to have been almost indispensable in making people into the kind of leaders that we admire. — Desmond Tutu

For people that don't have any interest in the psychology of nuance, who need everything to be in their face, who don't want to analyze ... those aren't the people I romanticize about dressing. — Marc Jacobs

Our society loves to romanticize the idea of the single, solo inventor who, working late in the lab one night, makes an earthshaking discovery, and voila, overnight everything's changed. That's a very appealing picture; however, it's just not true. Medicine today is a team sport. — Nguyen Quyen

Most girls are dumb. Guys are assholes, but girls tend to romanticize that shit. — Tijan

Nate hated, really hated, being told he thought too much. Jason wasn't the only one who said it: hippie-dippie types who romanticize the natural and the "intuitive" also prefer feeling to thought. But not thinking was a way of giving oneself license to be a dick. — Adelle Waldman

I've consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I've always said that I've been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happen to be spies, politicians, civil servants. — Charles McCarry

In the end, I am quite normal. I don't have odd habits. I don't dramatize. Above all, I do not romanticize the act of writing. I don't talk about the anguish I suffer in creating. I do not have a fear of the blank page, writer's block, all those things that we hear about writers. — Jose Saramago

You are my Lady of Shalott lost in a dream of isolation - I care too much for you - I romanticize depression ... — John Geddes

I've only ever met one woman who actually was a prostitute of her own free will. She didn't have a pimp. She could pick and choose her customers. That's so rare. So we have to look at the reality and not romanticize it. We have to be clear that you have the right to sell your own body but nobody has the right to sell anybody else's body. No one has that right. — Gloria Steinem

I think there are things that aren't represented in movies that are a big part of everyone's life. We romanticize everything about people in movies. One of the things I don't like in movies is that people feel alone with their bodily functions in the real world, as if people in the movies don't do these things. — Charlie Kaufman

Writing is work. It takes a lot of contemplation, concentration, and out-and-out sweat. People tend to romanticize it, that somehow your work appears by benefit of some mystical external force. In reality, to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. It's work, and often it's hard work. — Wendelin Van Draanen

Majority of women like to fantasize and men like to romanticize. I saw a painful mountain in her eyes. — Santosh Kalwar

My whole comic persona is that of a guy who explores the id: I romanticize gluttony, I romanticize laziness, and people identify with that. — Jim Gaffigan

I am beginning to realize, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, that one of the problems I have in life is a tendency to completely romanticize how things will be in the future, which inevitably leads to disappointment because it's pretty much never, never, what I expect — Jane Green

People romanticize, I think, this notion of life. But life at all costs is not life, it's ego-extension. — Emily Susan Rapp

We have a tendency to romanticize independence. Most business literature still views autonomy as a virtue, as though communication, teamwork, and cooperation were lesser values. — Keith Ferrazzi

Big thoughts are fun to romanticize, but it's many small insights coming together that bring big ideas into the world. — Scott Berkun

We romanticize entrepreneurshi p so much that people don't do the work. It's not just a dream, not just a goal; it's a lot of hard work. A lot of people are wantrepreneurs, not entrepreneurs. — Mark Cuban

I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision. — Allen Ginsberg

Our persistence in examining the tensions within diversity encourages growth toward our common goal. So often we either ignore the past or romanticize it, render the reason for unity useless or mythic. We forget that the necessary ingredient needed to make the past work for the future is our energy in the present, metabolizing one into the other. Continuity does not happen automatically, nor is it a passive process. The — Audre Lorde

Do not romanticize the poor ... We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity. — Cesar Chavez

When we are young, we have stars in our eyes. We have dreams. We romanticize the unattainable. Once the dream is attained, everything seems dreary. Once we are There, we realize there is no There. There is now Here. Disillusionment follows. Life is drudgery. Yet it is important to dream. — Jayant Swamy

We all romanticize the people we adore. — John Green

I romanticize. I live with the ghosts of Elvis and Frank Sinatra. It seems so glamorous. They were American men who don't exist anymore. But there are ugly things about them, too. — Brandon Flowers

The only people discussing "race" with any insight and courage are loud middle-aged white men who romanticize the Kennedys and Motown, well-read open-minded white kids like the tie-dyed familiar sitting next to me in the Free Tibet and Boba Fett T-shirt, a few freelance journalists in Detroit, and the American hikikomori who sit in their basements pounding away at their keyboards composing measured and well-thought-out responses to the endless torrent of racist online commentary. — Paul Beatty

The fact is, though, what I think we really like is Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and James Gandolfini. We like what the media has created of the mob bosses in movies and TV and books, because it's something the average person never comes into contact with, it's almost as outwardly outlandish as a sexy vampire, and so we can romanticize it, it's non-threatening. — Tod Goldberg

We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time. — Eugene Kennedy

One thing I like about the 1950s is that kids were hip without any sense of irony about it. They were dressing in fifties cool-cat clothing with complete sincerity. Nobody wanted to be"retro"back then. With the Depression still fresh in everybody's mind, did anyone in the 1950s dress up as the Joad family from The Grapes of Wrath, and go to Dust Bowl-themed parties because they thought it was cool? Probably not. In the past, the past was something you wanted to forget about rather than romanticize. I really miss those days. — Frank Conniff

[Ending] is partly drawn from a desire to shock the audience, to brutally de-romanticize what many Americans think is happening overseas. And partly drawn from my own childhood: violence and a loss of innocence. But keep in mind that, as a writer, I'm both the criminal and the victim. I'm not trying to get out of anything easy. — Said Sayrafiezadeh

We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings, a gifted mind somehow seeing over the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. But ideas are works of bricolage; they're built out of that detritus. — Steven Johnson

I'm a romantic, but I'm not a romantic in the traditional sense. I like to romanticize what happens to me. Whatever happens to me - you could quantify it as good or bad - I romanticize it. I think along the lines of 'When that thing happened, it made me who I am.' That kind of thing. It's a different way of being romantic. — Zooey Deschanel

We must resist the temptation to romanticize history's losers. — Niall Ferguson

Writing is wonderful. But it's hard work, so don't romanticize too much. Make the blinking cursor do its job. — Joseph LoGuidice

There was a tendency by some to romanticize love, to make a fetish out of it. The poets made love seem like a bar of iron coming out of the furnace at the blacksmith's, red hot and staying so forever. Soto did not think much of such notions. — Ken Liu

And meanwhile everybody's wondering what this old woman with half her face drooping onto her shoulder is doing bagging their groceries. You have no idea how I envy you your cubicle. The invisibility of it."
"Let's not romanticize the cubicle," Pip said.
"This is the terrible thing about bodies. They're so visible, so visible. — Jonathan Franzen

Americans, particularly after World War II, tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity, and our soldiers brought home glory and victory, and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent. — Neil Sheehan

One of the mistakes women have made is to romanticize life in the rose-covered cottage and then, discovering their error, proceed to romanticize life in the working world. — Juanita M. Kreps

When you're watching a documentary, the danger is to romanticize. — Ridley Scott

We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang. — Greg Boyle

We do not have to romanticize our past in order to be aware of how it seeds our present. We do not have to suffer the waste of an amnesia that robs us of the lessons of the past rather than permit us to read them with pride as well as deep understanding. We know what it is to be lied to, and we know how important it is not lie to ourselves. We are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about - survival and growth. — Audre Lorde

Tiger parenting is all about raising independent, creative, courageous kids. In America today, there's a dangerous tendency to romanticize creativity in a way that may undermine it. — Amy Chua

It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I feel like I have way more resources, way more experience. I'm better. But my fans romanticize the earlier stuff, and I don't think it's just like a nostalgia thing of "He's not as good" - I think it's because that earlier stuff was aggressively marketed as a lifestyle to them. — Talib Kweli

You always romanticize the past as soon as the future begins to frighten you. — Rick Remender

Popular culture has twisted it, but popular culture has twisted madness in general. They make it funny, they romanticize it, or they make it exaggerated. But true mental illness is nothing to laugh at. I stayed in the Birdcage for some time, I've seen scary things, and I've become numb to a great deal, but going mad is perhaps the scariest. — Wildbow

It's probably unwise to romanticize everything- and I'll probably always do it. — Samantha Ellis

I don't know where people think I'm from, but I'm from Chicago. It's really just that. People wanna romanticize it and say, 'There's two sides to it, and it's a beautiful love/hate story of violence and music.' But it's really just a very scummy place where people don't have respect for other people's lives. — Chance The Rapper

People used to romanticize the natural world, before the Rising. These days, we mostly just run away from it. — Mira Grant

You're dealing with the body, and you're dealing with bodily functions. We romanticize everything about people in movies. — Charlie Kaufman

The thing about dead people ... The thing is you sound like a bastard if you don't romanticize them, but the truth is ... complicated, I guess. — John Green

My dad, Frank Addison Albini, was a terrific shot with a rifle and had generally excellent hunting skills. While my dad loved hunting and fishing, he didn't romanticize them. He was filling the freezer, not intellectualizing some caveman impulse or proving his worth as a real man. — Steve Albini

I can be nostalgic for the past, and I can romanticize the future, but I cannot sugar coat the here and now. I think that's why I try not to think about it, and I think that's the exact same reason why I need to. — Ellie Rose McKee

To be honest, I tend to romanticize the past, and though I appreciate all the conveniences of modern life, sometimes I yearn for simpler times. — Aziz Ansari

People often romanticize children or adults with special needs, as if they are innocent-yet-wise creatures who can humble us all into becoming better humans. First of all, nobody can be innocent and wise at the same time. That's another one of those impossible combinations. It's as unachievable and improbable as Brenda. Or Carli. And secondly, I'm not suggesting the ladies of Camp Anchor were either one of those things in particular. But they owned their own flaws, and I am grateful I got to meet them when I was only fourteen. I left camp knowing a bunch of women who weren't afraid to claim the guy they wanted to dance with; they didn't change a thing for the men they loved. — Amy Schumer

People in general romanticize nature, and they make it out to be something that it isn't because humans are so awful. And yes, we are absolutely screwing up this planet, but that is only because we have the capabilities to do so. Animals are not better than us. They are not nicer than us. — Elise Andrew

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of a longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy. — John Piper

To say that God is love is not to romanticize his character or soften his holiness. In fact, the love of God means very little apart from his holiness and justice. The love of God is magnified in that he loves the unholy and pours out blessings upon those deserving just punishment for sin. — Joe Thorn

So many people glorify and romanticize 'busy.' I do not. I value purpose. I believe in resting in reason and moving in passion. If you're always busy/moving, you will miss important details. I like the mountain. Still, but when it moves, lands shift and earth quakes. — Joseph Cook

There's so much more to life than finding someone who will want you, or being sad over someone who doesn't. There's a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself without hoping someone will fall in love with you along the way, and it doesn't need to be painful or empty. You need to fill yourself up with love. Not anyone else. Become a whole being on your own. Go on adventures, fall asleep in the woods with friends, wander around the city at night, sit in a coffee shop on your own, write on bathroom stalls, leave notes in library books, dress up for yourself, give to others, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don't romanticize life like you can't survive without it. Live for yourself and be happy on your own. It isn't any less beautiful, I promise. — Emery Allen

I have nothing against romance. I believe that we must hold on to the right to dream and to be romantic. But an Indian village is not something that I would romanticize that easily. — Arundhati Roy

With thousands of years of history frozen in time, it's no wonder that many southerners like me romanticize the north as a place where we can freeze our former selves, thaw, and then bloom anew. Here it's just you, the land, and your thoughts, and you can't leave until you've wrestled with yourself and emerged a survivor. But then again, the light is much more intense up here and everything looks different because of it. The sun hasn't set in a couple of months, and you can see things much more clearly when it is light all of the time. — Shannon Mullen

The world must be romanticized. Only in that way will one rediscover its original senses. Romanticization is nothing less than a qualitative raising of the power of a thing ... I romanticize something when I give the commonplace a higher meaning, the known the dignity of the unknown, and the finite the appearance of the infinite. — Novalis

Mobster stories are always a harder sell for me. I don't romanticize organize crime the way others do, though I can be swayed. — Hank Stuever

She loves filming and taking photographs. I can imagine her making beautiful films in France or India or somewhere with a gorgeously colourful culture. She somehow reminds me of my favourite place in the world, she and Paris I can romanticize and immortalize in ceaseless poetry for the rest of my life. — Moonshine Noire

"Romanticizing the past" is a familiar accusation, made mostly by people who think it is more grown-up to romanticize the future. — Paul Kingsnorth

Jane remembers those years, though, as if they had been [a movie]
in part because her friends ... always talked about everything as if it was over ("Remember last night?"), while holding out the possibility that whatever happened could be rerun. Neil didn't have that sense of things. He thought people shouldn't romanticize ordinary life. "Our struggles, our little struggles," he would whisper, in bed, at night. Sometimes he or she would click on some of the flashlights and consider the ceiling, with the radiant swirls around the bright nuclei, the shadows like opened oysters glistening in brine. (In the '80s, the champagne was always waiting.) — Ann Beattie

As a young victim of bullying and then, later, a vindictive perpetrator of violence myself, I've known both sides of this experience, and I tried very hard in the writing here to be as absolutely honest as I possibly could, to not romanticize myself or my past actions or cowardly inactions in any way. — Andre Dubus

Most baby books also tend to romanticize the mother who stays at home, as if she really spends her entire day doing nothing but beaming at the baby and whipping up educational toys from pieces of string, rather than balancing cooing time with laundry, cleaning, shopping and cooking. — Susan Chira

The death of young musicians isn't something to romanticize — Frances Bean Cobain

Looking back, you can romanticize the things you did back then. I also like talking about the stupid things I've done. — Walter Martin

I'm wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, 'I am my musical taste.' I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that's a thing that people romanticize: 'Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.' — Zooey Deschanel

The value of the things is not in themselves autonomously, but that God made them, and thus they deserve to be treated with high respect. The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it). This is wrong because it is not true. When you drive the axe into the tree when you need firewood, you are not cutting down a person; you are cutting down a tree. But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize God made it and it deserves respect because He made is as a tree. — Francis Schaeffer