The Hidden Reality Quotes & Sayings

Thirsty for being, the poet ceaselessly reaches out to reality, seeking with the indefatigable harpoon of the poem a reality that is always better hidden, more re(g)al. The poem's power is as an instrument of possession but at the same time, ineffably, it expresses the desire for possession, like a net that fishes by itself, a hook that is also the desire of the fish. To be a poet is to desire and, at the same time, to obtain, in the exact shape of the desire. — Julio Cortazar

The poets and writers are trying to understand the reality of woman, but up to this day they have not understand the hidden secret of her heart because they look upon her from behind the sexual veil and see nothing but the externals: they look upon her from magnifying glass of hatefulness and find nothing except weakness and submission. — Kahlil Gibran

Adam delayed only a second longer before traversing into the uncertain future, crossing the hidden divide; the fabric separating worlds. He moved from the shadows that paralleled the town, where unseen lives existed alongside of unsuspecting, oblivious people. With his seemingly mundane act of taking one step forward, he effectively walked from myth to reality. — J.M. Northup

In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations. — Claude Bernard

Even their contemporaries felt that the relationship of Elizabeth and Robert transcended the details on practicality. There had to be some explanation for their lifelong fidelity, and those contemporaries put it down to 'synaptia', a hidden conspiracy of the stars, whose power to rule human lives no-one doubted: 'a sympathy of spirits between them, occasioned perhaps by some secret constellation', in the words of the historian William Camden, writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Theirs was a relationship already rooted in history and mythology. And that moment when Elizabeth heard she had come to the throne encapsulated much about their story. If our well-loved picture of Elizabeth's accession is something of a fantasy - if the reality is on the whole more interesting - you might say the same about our traditional picture of her relationship with Robert Dudley. — Sarah Gristwood

Persistent problems, however unpleasant they may seem, contain the unprocessed and unexamined thoughts and feelings that, if left alone, keep you from your greatness. That's why the pain, emptiness, and longing you feel can be your greatest gift - it can motivate you to examine parts of yourself that have been overlooked, forgotten, or hidden. It's the irritant of sand in the oyster, which is the impetus for the pearl. In walking the conscious life path, you reveal your deepest Reality, layer by layer. You come home. — Jennifer Howard

Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, our lives become richer, our judgment better, and our world is more right. It is not love that is blind, it is only the unnoticed eye that cannot see the real qualities of people. — Charles H. Percy

God's M.O., he reflected, is to transmute evil into good. If He is active here, He is doing that now, although our eyes can't perceive it; the process lies hidden beneath the surface of reality, and emerges only later. To, perhaps, our waiting heirs. Paltry people who will not know the dreadful war we've gone through, and the losses we took, unless in some footnote in a minor history book they catch a notion. Some brief mention. With no list of the fallen. — Philip K. Dick

Treasures are hidden and hard to find but if we could find a real treasure, it will shine our lives. In the similar way ultimate reality is hidden and hard to find but if we could find it, it will shine our lives. — Muditha Champika

The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality. — Edith Sitwell

To me, the rainbow was a profoundly hopeful symbol, separating the the white light of appearances into its multiple spectrum and revealing a hidden dimension. It reminded me of my belief that it was the mission of science to pierce through the layers of everyday reality and penetrate to the truth. — Candace B. Pert

Understand that religion, at least western versions of it, rests on a type of thinking called Revelation. This mode holds that truths concerning the workings of reality are hidden, masked by, through or behind a deity such that only a few privileged souls are able to see through the veil and "reveal" those truths. . . But (around 1600) revelation as a means of understanding began to be challenged by two other methods of differentiating truth from fallacy: Reason and Empiricism. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual. — Abbas Kiarostami

With the sound of gusting wind in the branches of the language trees of Babel, the words gave way like leaves, and every reader glimpsed another reality hidden in the foilage. — Andrei Codrescu

Landscapes of great wonder and beauty lie under our feet and all around us. They are discovered in tunnels in the ground, the heart of flowers, the hollows of trees, fresh-water ponds, seaweed jungles between tides, and even drops of water. Life in these hidden worlds is more startling in reality than anything we can imagine. How could this earth of ours, which is only a speck in the heavens, have so much variety of life, so many curious and exciting creatures? — Walt Disney Company

To work magic is to weave the unseen forces into form; to soar beyond sight; to explore the uncharted dream realm of the hidden reality. — Starhawk

It occurred to me that everything I was doing in Indonesia was more like a game than reality. It was as though we were playing a game of poker. We kept our cards hidden. We could not trust each other or count on the reliability of the information we shared. Yet, this game was deadly serious, and its outcome would impact millions of lives for decades to come. — John Perkins

Silvia, with her long gorgeous hair sprawled across the pillow, was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. Her breasts bunched up like they were stuck in a corset made by Derek's weight, the good bits hidden by his muscular arm. I'd gotten more than an eyeful in the mystical aura of the Blood Stone, but craved to see if she was really that perfect in the stark reality of dawn. Derek closed his eyes, settling around his wife with a satisfied sigh and his arm slipped. My heart leapt and I bit my lip. Yep. Definitely perfect.

J.M. Friedman. Succubus in Seattle (Kindle Locations 1050-1054). — J.R. Thorn

What is important to me in my work is the identity that is hidden behind so-called reality. I search for a bridge from the given present tot the invisible, rather as a famous cabalist once said, 'If you wish to grasp the invisible, penetrate as deeply as possible into the visible'. — Max Beckmann

In the hidden order of reality, there is no distinction between mind and matter. The split between inner and outer - subjective and objective - that we experience in ordinary life is unknown in the deeper reality. — Robert Moss

The sermons of pastors convert no one. Just consider how many sermons you've heard in your life. Circumstances convert people! You have to make your way to new circumstances so that reality can really get through to you, because that's where Jesus has hidden himself : in the human condition and even in the humiliation of human flesh. Christ always comes into the world on an ass, Christ always comes into the world as a beggar. We would so much like to have him enclosed in the Church and in our theology. But Good is always free. — Richard Rohr

So think how this might alter the memory of The Matrix: In some protracted reality, film historians will reinvestigate an extremely commercial action movie made by people who (unbeknownst to the audience) would eventually transition from male to female. Suddenly, the symbolic meaning of a universe with two worlds - one false and constructed, the other genuine and hidden - takes on an entirely new meaning. — Chuck Klosterman

Paradise is hidden in each one of use, it is concealed within me too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

A spiritual teaching is a finger pointing toward Reality; it is not Reality itself. To be in a true and mature relationship with a spiritual teaching requires you to apply it, not simply believe in it. Belief leads to various forms of fundamentalism and shuts down the curiosity and inquiry that are essential to open the way for awakening and what lies beyond awakening. A good spiritual teaching is something that you work with and apply. In doing so, it works on you (often in a hidden way) and helps reveal to you the Truth (and falseness) that lies within you. — Adyashanti

The hidden reality of human life is the fact that the world doesn't just happen. It isn't a natural fact, even though we tend to treat it as if it is - it exists because we all collectively produce it. — David Graeber

The Bible frequently uses symmetries and inversions. By such comparisons (parallels and contrasts) the unique aspects of reality begin to emerge. Comparing two objects makes their differences increasingly apparent. Only then can we ask, "Why does this one have that, and the other does not?" For instance: The phrase, "and it was
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good" is present on all the days of creation - except the second day. Why? Because, "two" contains potential badness, to a Hebrew. We could not have discovered that insight, unless we contrasted God's description of the creative days. — Michael Ben Zehabe

Music springs from and is replenished by a hidden source which lies outside the world or reality. Music ever spoke to me of a mysterious world beyond, which moved my heart deeply and eloquently intimated its transcendental nature. — Bruno Walter

And the touch of her own mask, at first cool and clammy leather, but quickly like a second skin, and the play it gives her, herself a stage, her every breath a performance, and yet (herein lies the magic) also and entirely true. Every game, every lie flirting and cruel - and the house is full of them, games and lies - is real as knives, for the masquerade has come to define the night. The false face of everyday, that hides reality beneath flesh and skin, is itself hidden beneath the fantasy that, because it is a product and reflection of the mind, is an honest facade. Sadie has lived a wary, defensive life, always urged by that self-preserving instinct to stay small, hidden, safe. She did not know she had an imp inside her until she wore it on her face.

("One Of The Hungry Ones") — Holly Phillips

Paranoia has its downsides as an agency in daily life, or in the political sphere of collective action, which finds itself beset everywhere by the nightmarish influence of conspiracy thinking (they call it theory, but theories exist to be tested, and conspiracy thinking exists never to be tested, and globally ignores the results of tests imposed by others). The suspicion that malign operators are responsible for every one of the injustices and heartbreaks of existence is a consoling view, a balm to bleak glimpses of the void behind our reality. It's brave to pursue truth, and brave to pursue and expose tricky and well-hidden bad guys (Nazi doctors, Pentagon intelligence-distorters, etc.). It's not brave to think tricky, well-hidden bad guys are the whole truth of what's out there. It might even be bravery's opposite. Or maybe it should go under the name religion. — Jonathan Lethem

Because the conversation in heaven is never revealed to Job or his friends, they understandably misjudge precisely what is at stake. This hidden information is especially poignant because, as Job argues his case before God, he believes that he can "win" if he can force God into court to account for himself, to give an explanation for his actions. In reality, Job has nothing to win because he is not on trial. — John H. Walton

What happened to us? It was a question that interested her. Most people seemed to believe that they were experts of their own life story. They had a set of memories that they strung like beads, and this necklace told a sensible tale. But she suspected that most of these stories would fall apart under strict examination--that, in fact, we were only peeping through a keyhole of our lives, and the majority of the truth, the reality of what happened to us, was hidden. Memories were no more solid than dreams...What happened to us? She drew smoke, considering the question. Was it possible that we would never really know? What if we were not, actually, the curators of our own lives? — Dan Chaon

This is why the shaman is the remote ancestor of the poet and artist. Our need to feel part of the world seems to demand that we express ourselves through creative activity. The ultimate wellsprings of this creativity are hidden in the mystery of language. Shamanic ecstasy is an act of surrender that authenticates both the individual self and that which is surrendered to, the mystery of being. Because our maps of reality are determined by our present circumstances, we tend to lose awareness of the larger patterns of time and space. Only by gaining access to the Transcendent Other can those patterns of time and space and our role in them be glimpsed. — Terence McKenna

Since ancient times, the left side has stood for the side of the unconscious or the unknown; the right side, by contrast, has represented the side of consciousness or wakefulness. Through the late twentieth century, the movement of the Left limited themselves to a materialist understanding of reality- exemplified by Marxism- demanding social justice and economic equality but not the restoration of intuition and the recognition of the hidden, qualitative dimensions of being suppressed by the mental-rational consciousness, narrowly focused on the quantifiable. — Jean Gebser

Everyone of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self..We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves. (34) Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self. There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation, and the superficial, external self which we commonly identify with the first person singular.(7) Our reality, our true self, is hidden in what appears to us to be nothingness ... We can rise above this unreality and recover our hidden reality ... (281) God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and true self. (41) — Thomas Merton

Gender provides a revealing entrance into the world's religious traditions. How gender is viewed reflects itself not simply in the moral practices of those traditions, but in their metaphysics. Gender shapes their worldview and ethos. In Taoism, for example, ultimate reality is feminine, and what is seen as truly powerful is what adapts and adjusts. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam privilege the masculine. For these religions, what counts for ultimately is the power to control and command. Religions are gendered entities, although often presenting themselves as something simply natural or God-ordained, and therefore objective and universal. Viewing the various religions through the lens of gender, opens up a hidden landscape. It reveals what is usually veiled, puts voices into officially sanctioned silences, and makes more complex what we see and hear and learn from the past. It enriches our grasp upon the heritage of the sacred. — John C. Raines

Thus he spent his whole life searching for his own truth, but it remained hidden to him because he had learned at a very young age to hate himself for what his mother had done to him. ( ... ) But not once did he allow himself to direct his endless, justified rage at the true culprit, the woman who had kept him locked up in her prison for as long as she could. All his life he attempted to free himself of that prison, with the help of drugs, travel, illusions, and above all poetry. But in all these desperate efforts to open the doors that would have led to liberation, one of them remained obstinently shut, the most important one: the door to the emotional reality of his childhood, to the feelings of the little child who was forced to grow up with a severely disturbed, malevolent woman, with no father to protect him from her. — Alice Miller

ABUSIVE MEN COME in every personality type, arise from good childhoods and bad ones, are macho men or gentle, "liberated" men. No psychological test can distinguish an abusive man from a respectful one. Abusiveness is not a product of a man's emotional injuries or of deficits in his skills. In reality, abuse springs from a man's early cultural training, his key male role models, and his peer influences. In other words, abuse is a problem of values, not of psychology. When someone challenges an abuser's attitudes and beliefs, he tends to reveal the contemptuous and insulting personality that normally stays hidden, reserved for private attacks on his partner. An abuser tries to keep everybody - his partner, his therapist, his friends and relatives - focused on how he feels, so that they won't focus on how he thinks, perhaps because on some level he is aware that if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination. — Lundy Bancroft

When you realize that quantum mechanics underlies all physical processes, from the fusing of atoms in the sun to the neural firings that constitutes the stuff of thought, the far-reaching implications of the proposal become apparent. It says that there's no such thing as a road untraveled. Yet each such road - each reality - is hidden from all others. — Brian Greene

Reality of things is hidden in the realm of the unseen — Hamza Yusuf

Do dreams mirror reality, or is it the other way round? The answers to such riddles are hidden from us — Jacob Rosenberg

But in reality, with Mr. Ellison there is an essence of probity about him; unlike Dorian Grey, him and his hidden portrait are both wonderful. When he speaks there is a certain intonation he gets that reveals so much about him, that you can't help but to feel rapt, and so few get to hear his unspoken thought because they are fixated on the bling and the big show. — Avra Amar Filion

Causality was no longer the hidden demiurge that ruled the universe: down was up, the last was the first, the end was the beginning. Heraclitus had been resurrected from his dung heap, and what he had to show us was the simplest of truths: reality was a yo-yo, change was the only constant. — Paul Auster

Practice by drawing things large, as if equal in representation and reality. In small drawings every large weakness is easily hidden; in the large, the smallest weakness is easily seen. — Leon Battista Alberti

Even the most artistic of imaginings can sometimes seem callow in the face of truth. That which appears may not be and that which lies hidden may just be the stark, naked face of reality. — Anurag Anand

There are for man only two principles available for a mental grasp of reality, namely, those of teleology and causality. What cannot be brought under either of these categories is absolutely hidden to the human mind. An event not open to an interpretation by one of these two principles is for man inconceivable and mysterious. Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available. — Ludwig Von Mises

Only that, nothing more - a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality, to help decipher and understand it and thus to initiate, if possible, a change in the conscience of some readers. — Isabel Allende

By setting oneself totally free of constraints, free of thoughts, free of this debilitating activity called work, free of efforts, elements hidden in the texture of reality start staring at you; then mysteries that you never thought existed emerge in front of your eyes. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

His own true hidden reality that he had desired to know grew palpable, recognizable. It seemed to him just this: a great, glad, abounding hope that he had saved his brother; too expansive to be contained by the limited form of a sole man, it yearned for a new embodiment infinite as the stars.
What did it matter to that true reality that the man's brain shrank, shrank, till it was nothing; that the man's body could not retain the huge pain of his heart, and heaved it out through the red exit riven at the neck: that hurtling blackness blotted out forever the man's sight, hearing, sense? — Clemence Housman

In a Democracy, the real rulers are the dexterous manipulators of votes, with their placemen, the mechanics who so skillfully operate the hidden springs which move the puppets in the arena of democratic elections. Men of this kind are ever ready with loud speeches lauding equality; in reality, they rule the people as any despot or military dictator might rule it. — Konstantin Pobedonostsev

Black Magick is the process of self-transformation through an antinomian initiatory structure, Black meaning the hidden wisdom, power of darkness, dreams and staging the reality you wish and Magick being the process to ascend, become immortal in spirit. — Michael W. Ford

He had the aloofness of manner you often find in those who have lived much alone in unfrequented places ... they seem always to hold something back. They have a life in themselves that they keep apart ... this hidden life is the only one that signifies to them. And no and then their eyes betray the weariness with the social round into which hazard or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced them. They seem then to long for the monotonous solitude of some place of their predilection where they can be once more alone with the reality they have found. — W. Somerset Maugham

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden. — Marcia Sirota

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don't need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It's not just an idea, it's reality. We're discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. — Adam Savage

The love is what's left at the end because it's the bedrock, fundamental reality that gets hidden all the time, but never really goes away. — Marianne Williamson

The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we're not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced. — Elon Musk

Science, is the creation by humans of a particular paradigm and methodology for discovering truth and understanding reality. Hence it can never fully reflect the hidden face of humanity, its creator, in the same sense that a computer can never become fully human or know what it means to be human: however sophisticated, these machines will forever remain mere artifacts of humanity. — Stephen A. Diamond

Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world. It is alive as a devotional form. — Nathaniel Dorsky

The end (goal) of art is to figure the hidden meaning of things and not their appearance; for in this profound truth lies their true reality, which does not appear in their external outlines. — Joseph Conrad

Here lay the gateway between worlds, the divide between reality and fantasy. A dream or, depending on who waited, a nightmare. — Danielle L. Jensen

Perhaps I identify too well with my father's illicit awe. A trace of this seems caught in the photo, just as a trace of Roy has been caught on the light-sensitive paper ... It's a curiously ineffectual attempt at censorship. Why cross out the year and not the month? Why, for that matter, leave the photo in the envelope at all?
In an act of prestidigitation typical of the way my father juggled his public appearance and private reality, the evidence is simultaneously hidden and revealed. — Alison Bechdel

A photograph is a universe of dots. The grain, the halide, the little silver things clumped in the emulsion. Once you get inside a dot, you gain access to hidden information, you slide into the smallest event. This is what technology does. It peels back the shadows and redeems the dazed and rumbling past. It makes reality come true. — Don DeLillo

Photography has always been associated with death. Reality is colorful, yet early photography always took the color out of reality and made it black-and-white. Color is life; black-and-white is death. There was a ghost hidden in the invention of photography. — Nobuyoshi Araki

I steer clear of telling. I can't come out with it; the outlandish truth of me. How can I reveal this to someone innocent and unsuspecting? With those who know my story I talk freely about us ... but with others I keep it hidden, the truth. I keep it under wraps because I don't want to shock or make anyone distressed ... I try to keep a distance from those who are innocent of my reality. At best I am vague. I feel deceitful at times, but I can't just drop it on someone, I feel. It's too horrifying, too huge. — Sonali Deraniyagala

The pale fabric of reality has so many hidden pockets that we can find some change in here somewhere - you just have to dig a little deeper to avoid the chewing gum and past mistakes. — Corey Taylor

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real ... and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295) — Thomas Merton

Do we call the star lost that is hidden / In the great light of morn? — Phoebe Cary

Without thoughtful effort and purposeful change, human life does not improve. The key to living a meaningful life is to accept reality. There is no inherent meaning to life just as there is no hidden meaning behind death. Life is limited and death is simply an ending. The only meaning to life is what each person passionately commits their life to accomplishing. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Wasn't it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core
a tiny flame to cup one's hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish. — Haruki Murakami

Philosophy is the art of seeing through appearances to discern the hidden reality. — Alan Ryan

People enjoy the passion of delusions. However, the world is built on a basis that if you free yourself, you find yourself within another illusion. There is always a truth hidden within a truth. It is no different from illusions and deceptions of reality. The question then becomes
how does one become truly free? — Lionel Suggs

Almost always, things are exactly as they appear. People are continually looking at the painful or boring parts of life with the half-hidden expectation that there is more going on beneath the surface, some deeper meaning that will eventually be unveiled; we're waiting for the saving grace, the shocking reveal. But almost always things just are what they are, almost always there's no glittering one hidden under the dirt. — Ben H. Winters

God remains hidden and silent unless you participate. Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not. We are all the co-creators of reality with God. God moves only when there is intention or prayer. He walks toward us when we take the very first step. Faith is the prime step. — Samreen Ahsan

We can say that, for Merton, religion refers to our deepest reality which lies hidden in our innate propensity for union with God. Our life, in other words, simply makes no sense whatsoever except to the extent it is directed toward union with God, that is, to the extent that it is authentically religious. — James Finley

I am convinced that in the present time, in spite of the difficulties man has to meet another in a state of oblation, communion and gift of self, there are latent hidden forces in him which can be awakened in order to enable him to discover and live this reality of love and fidelity. In order to really penetrate into this mystery of the union of the couple, it is essential that each one acquire an interior maturity, a maturity that is perhaps rare. I would add that in order to be truly united and to remain truly faithful to one another, the couple must listen and be open to the Spirit of God who has reserved for Himself the science of the heart. The heart of man is satisfied only by the Infinite and to discover this Infinite in union he must open himself to the Spirit of God, a spirit of giving, of receiving. The union between the two spouses can thus deepen to such an extent that they enter in a mystical manner into the very life of God Himself. — Jean Vanier

I suspect that scientists are driven by the sense that the world out there - reality - contains a hidden order, and the scientist is trying to elucidate the hidden order in our reality. And that impulse is what the scientist shares with the mystic. The impulse to get to the bottom of things. To know how the world really works. To know the nature of things. — Michael Crichton

As the interpretation of reality by the power structure, ideology is always subordinated ultimately to the interests of the structure. Therefore, it has a natural tendency to disengage itself from reality, to create a world of appearances, to become ritual ... Increasingly, the virtuosity of the ritual becomes more important than the reality hidden behind it. — Vaclav Havel

The reality of a person is a deep and hidden thing, buried not only in the invisible recesses of man's own metaphysical secrecy but in the secrecy of God Himself. — Thomas Merton

In the most secret heart of every intellectual ... there lies hidden ... the hope of power, the desire to bring his ideas to reality by imposing them on his fellow man. — Lionel Trilling

The fact that these highly abstract notions coalesce in such refined harmony is absolutely mind-boggling. It points to something rich and mysterious lurking beneath the surface, as if the curtain had been lifted and we caught glimpses of the reality that had been carefully hidden from us. These are the wonders of modern math, and of the modern world. — Edward Frenkel

There is in certain ancient things a trace
Of some dim essence --
More than form or weight;
A tenuous aether, indeterminate,
Yet linked with all the laws of time and space.
A faint, veiled sign of continuities
That outward eyes can never quite descry;
Of locked dimensions harboring years gone by,
And out of reach except for hidden keys. — H.P. Lovecraft

We do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for the pure, sensual, and unadulterated pleasure of reading. And if we do so, our reward is the discovery of the many hidden layers within these works that do not merely reflect reality but reveal a spectrum of truths, thus intrinsically going against the grain of totalitarian mindsets. — Azar Nafisi