When You Thought It Was Real Quotes & Sayings

Look I thought once you knew, you'd be pissed,' he says. 'I thought you'd think it was another one of my stupid pranks, and then I wouldn't get to spend time with you helping you find your mystery guy. And with as much as you care about love and MTB or whatever, I didn't think you'd ever forgive me for messing with your idea of a perfect romance. When all along ... well, what I was hoping you'd realize was ... '
'My mystery guy was you,'I finish in a whisper.
'Well, yeah,' he says. He reaches out and touches my chin-once, gently, 'I really like you, Julia. A lot. I-I want to be with you.'
A huge smile breaks across my face, so big my cheeks feel like they're going to detach from my jaw. I bite my lip. My whole body feels like it has been stuck inside an oven, and this time I let myself remeber, really remember, our kiss in the field. 'So the kiss ... it was for real? — Lauren Morrill

I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it ... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves. — Count Basie

Still, being able to feel pain was good, he thought. It's when you can't even feel pain anymore that you're in real trouble. — Haruki Murakami

You're mine, Angel, and don't you forget it. Your fights are my fights. What if something bad had happened today? It was bad enough when I thought your ghost was haunting me; I don't think I can handle the real thing. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me."
I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world," I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me."
Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure."
People are strange when you're a stranger. — Haruki Murakami

I never thought I'd do comedy, ever, in a million years. I always thought comedy was just for fun - to me, the real stuff was the real dramatic stuff. Now I know it's all valuable. There's a real excitement, a good feeling when you can make people laugh. — Peri Gilpin

You can let go of all that stuff you thought was real when you know it's just a game. What a relief, what a state of grace that brings. — Jay Woodman

Shame was a powerful demon. It made you feel like everyone was looking at you and judging you and your situation when in reality, half of those people we thought knew our faults really didn't know or even care. But Shame will make us feel that way, and that's how that other demon called Depression would creep in. All they do is feed off of each other and before you know it, they're having a house party in your spirit along with their friends Guilt, Defeat, Hurt, and the big boss Anger. Their "turn up" would be too real, and if there aren't people around who really love and care for you it could be a hard thing to overcome. — Denora Boone

And the voice spoke even more deliberately: ' ... but remember what is under the ocean of clouds: eternity.'
And suddenly that tranquil world, the world of such simple harmony that you discover as you rise above the clouds, took on an unfamiliar quality in my eyes. All that gentleness became a trap. In my mind's eye I saw that vast white trap laid out, right under my feet. Beneath it reigned neither the restlessness of men nor the living tumult and motion of cities, as one might have thought, but a silence that was even more absolute, a more final peace. That viscous whiteness was turning before my eyes into the boundary between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. And I was already beginning to sense that a spectacle has no meaning except when seen through a culture, a civilization, a professional craft. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Yet surely that story she had imagined was a real thing? If you created a story with your mind surely it was just as much there as a piece of needlework that you created with your fingers? You could not see it with your bodily eyes, that was all ... the invisible world must be saturated with the stories that men tell both in their minds and by their lives. They must be everywhere, these stories, twisting together, penetrating existence like air breathed into the lungs, and how terrible, how awful, thought Henrietta, if the air breathed should be foul. How dare men live, how dare they think or imagine, when every action and every thought is a tiny thread to ar or enrich that tremendous tapestried story that man weaves on the loom that God has set up, a loom that stretches from heaven above to hell below, and from side to side of the universe ... — Elizabeth Goudge

It wasn't that we didn't know history. Even if you only count the real world, we knew more history than most people. We'd been taught about cavemen and Normans and Tudors. We knew about Greeks and Romans. We knew masses of personal stories about World War II. We even knew quite a lot of family history. It just didn't connect to the landscape. And it was the landscape that formed us, that made us who we were as we grew in it, that affected everything. We thought we were living in a fantasy landscape when actually we were living in a science fictional one. In ignorance, we played our way through what the elves and giants had left us, taking the fairies' possession for ownership. I named the dramroads after places in The Lord of the Rings when I should have recognized that they were from The Chrysalids. — Jo Walton

I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love. — Chuck Palahniuk

They really liked each other, too. Not like boyfriend and girlfriend, I don't mean. But they both had naturally curly hair, and they both thought professional wrestling was real
which are two pretty strong bonds, when you think about it. — Barbara Park

This isn't your fight, Patch," I said quietly.
His eyes burned with an intensity I'd never seen before. "You're mine, Angel, and don't you forget it. Your fights are my fights. What if something had happened today? It was bad enough when I thought your ghost was haunting me; I don't think I could handle the real thing. — Becca Fitzpatrick

I don't know why you want to hang out when I'm half asleep?"
Cooper leaned over and kissed me softly. His lips sucked at my bottom lip for a second before he pulled back and relaxed into the corner of the couch. "You pout when you sleep."
"Huh?"
"Like an angry little pout," he said, demonstrating with his lips. "It's the hottest thing I've ever seen. I thought you might give me a real talking to like my old gym teacher. Man, did that bitch hate me."
"I'm sure she had her reasons."
Cooper snorted. "Of course, you'd take a stranger's side over the guy who's feeding you."
"Maybe you called her a bitch forty times."
"Yeah, there was that. — Bijou Hunter

Of course, she could still walk away. She won't, he thought. She has to feel it, too. He said, " I've always liked the name Jane." Blue's eyes widened. "Ja
what? Oh! No, no, You can't go around naming people other things because you don't like their real name. "I like Blue just fine,"Gansey said. He didn't believe she was really offended; her face didn't look like it had at Nino's when they'd first met, and her ears were turning pink. He thought possibly, he was getting a little better at not offending her, although he couldn't seem to stop teasing her. "Some of my favorite shirts are blue. However, I also like Jane." "I'm not answering to that. — Maggie Stiefvater

But when you know, you know. And when you've lost everything you thought was real, you recognize real when you see it. You just have to trust it. — J.B. Hartnett

Thorne glared at him. "Whatever, Doctor. It's just, when Cress thought she was in love with me, she was actually in love with this other guy she'd made up in her head, who was brave and selfless and stuff. I mean, he was a real catch, so who could blame her? Even I liked that guy. I kind of wish I was that guy." He shrugged.
"Are you so sure you're not? — Marissa Meyer

He believed in a true world. A world behind this one, that shines through it, like a candle through a lampshade' ... She thought of the true world the times they had seen it - it was like light glinting on the surface of the river, that shimmering quality when you saw it. It wasn't the thing itself. It was your own ability to see it ... the feeling when time stopped, and you could stay there forever. 'You see the beauty in everything. It doesn't last long
it's either gone in a minute, you just caught it, or else maybe it's something so big that you normally can't get your head around it. Like the fog in your head clears out. The world stops being a puppet show and you see the real thing. It's probably like that all the time, but you just can't see it, except for those little glimpses (pg 82). — Janet Fitch

There it was before her - life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance. — Virginia Woolf

Actually, I think you sound more Southern than me." "I blame my Mama for that, too," he replied. "She was an old-time rodeo queen from Amarillo, Texas. She homeschooled me and my brother Dirk until high school, so the Texas twang kinda stuck. Now as for Georgia, I find it a real shame you'd want to get rid of it. I find a woman with a soft Southern drawl incredibly sexy." "Tell you what, when I decide I want to be sexy for you, I'll be sure to turn it on full force."
She was a real firecracker, this Georgia girl. He liked that. He answered her with a grin. "I'll look forward to it." "In your dreams, cowboy," he thought he heard her mutter under her breath.
He cocked his head, "What was that?"
"Coffee?" She smiled wide. "If I recall, you promised me Starbucks. — Victoria Vane

I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn't been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like 'What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to get a real job?', and my parents thought I'd completely lost it. — Matthew Quick

I thought it was a fleeting emotion, something that eventually fades like lust. Now I know that real love is when the soul meets its true mate. True and undeniable. It's as instinctual as the need to eat, sleep or breathe. Like a puzzle piece that only fits in one place, you are my home, the only place I belong. You are it for me. My true. — Gwendolyn Grace

Poor Cook, thought Captain, I must be kinder to her. She makes a splendid pet. How faithful she is! I always say you can't get the same love from a dog that you can from a human. So clever, too. I believe she understands every word I say. I believe they have souls, just like dogs. It's uncanny how canine a human can be, if you are kind to them and treat them well. I know for a fact that when some dogs in history died, their humans lay down on the grave and howled all night and refused food and pined away. It was just instinct, of course, not real intelligence, but all the same it makes you think. I believe that when a human does, it goes to a special heaven for humans, with kind dogs to look after it. — T.H. White

That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don't know how it works with the real world, but ... but.." Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but not what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. "Most girls, when they're interested in a guy, will sit them with for free . — Maggie Stiefvater

I had a crush, but I'm not sure I actually had a crush on Sam Hunt. He was the face attached to it, but I don't really know much about him at all. I thought he played basketball, but I think it may have actually been volleyball. No matter. I took what I knew, and I filled in the details to my liking. It was fun. And also ridiculous. When you have a crush on a half-real, half-imaginary boy, you will always be disappointed. — Emily P. Freeman

is how he printed up all of this fake money and threw it into a crowd. People thought it was real and tried to spend it in shops, and they were so angry when they found out it was fake. But now, those bills sell for a fortune on eBay. It's simultaneously real and not real, you know? Worthless as currency, but not as art . . . my brother asked for one of those bills for Christmas a few years ago, and my mom assumed he wanted it framed, and he said he'd just stick it in his wallet because it was one of the few works of art you could carry in your pocket. — Robyn Schneider

Fire's tears were real now, and there was no helping them, for there was no time. Everything was moving too fast. She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that it was awkward to show a person all of one's love when one's nose was broken.
His arms came around her tightly, his breath short and hard against her hair. He held on to the silk of her hair and she pressed herself against him until her panic calmed to something desperate, but bearable.
Yes, she thought to him, understanding now what he'd been about to ask. If you die in the war, I'll keep Hanna in my heart. I promise I won't leave her. — Kristin Cashore

So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you ever meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing.'
I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.'
There's a silver lining I've been looking for,' she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was a blissful oblivion, better than firewhiskey; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand on her back, the other in her long sweet-smelling hair ... — J.K. Rowling

It was one of those moments when you wonder whether there is some kind of big misunderstanding and really this is all just a dream or a made-up story, and not the real world like you thought it was. — Chris Beckett

I kissed him lightly and used the moment to slip the package out of the inside of his pocket. I was a white handkerchief folded into a square. "What's this?"
He pretended to look put out. "Did you just pick my pocket?"
"Yes."
"Good thing it's for you then."
"It is? Really?" I'd only been teasing him when I went through his pockets. I unwrapped it, touched. It was a small brooch made of tin, in the shape of a rose. "Oh, Colin, it's lovely. Thank you!"
"I thought the rose would remind you of this place. I guess now you don't need it." he pinned it to my top, just under my collarbone. "I love you, Violet. Could you love a gardener who can't afford real silver, now that you're an earl's daughter living in a fine house?"
I leaned forward so my lips were so close to his they brushed lightly when I spoke. "I love you, Colin Lennox."
His grin was crooken and wicked.
"Then we'll be just fine. — Alyxandra Harvey

No one ever knew they were old-fashioned; everyone always thought they were up-to-the-minute: Rickety Model T cars weren't rickety when they were invented, scratchy radio wasn't scratchy until television, and silent movies weren't a feeble precursor of talkies until there were talkies. Your two-piece telephone that demanded that you hold a cylinder to your ear while you screeched into the wall demanding a particular exchange of a harried, plug-juggling operator was the highest of high-tech. To know it was anything less would have been like acknowledging you were going to die and life was transient and you were already halfway to being a memory or worse. The real and worst tragedy of twentieth-century East Europeans: They had known they were old-fashioned before they could do anything about it. — Arthur Phillips

But why me?
Because, idiot, you ... are funny and smart and you have a giant heart that you can't even pretend to hide. And you love your friends and your mum, and you held my hand and made me sing when I was so scared I thought I was going to die. I knew you understood, right from the beginning, this thing inside, the stuff in your head that you need to make real. You get that ... And you wear stupid Superman pyjamas without any irony, and your face lights up when you talk about the movies you love ... And ... you protect my dwarf. You always have her back. And you have a dimple when you smile that's so cute I almost died the first time I saw it. — Melissa Keil

Some words we use all the time are difficult to define when we actually have to think about them. We use the word "evil" all the time but when asked to define what we are talking about, it can be quite difficult.

Think about evil as you would think of counterfeit currency. A counterfeit is the corruption of something real. You can have real currency without the existence of any counterfeits. You cannot, however, have counterfeits without the real thing existing first. Evil is dependent on the existence of goodness but goodness is not dependent on evil. Goodness was there first. It is an absolute. Evil must always be thought of in relationship with absolute goodness. — Jon Morrison

Harper, I ... "
You don't have to say it."
I don't?"
I know."
You know what?"
I lean against him, nestling in the crook of his arm. I talk into his neck. I don't need to be able to see to find the parts of him I know.
That morning in the trailer, when we had it to ourselves, and you made me breakfast, I wondered whether you would tell me you loved me, if you'd ever tell me, and I looked at you, and I thought you were going to say it, but instead you went off on a tangent about boysenberry jam."
And?"
And it was funny. And it was close enough to the real thing for me. Just sitting there with you like that."
Boysenberry jam?"
Boysenberry jam."
Harper," he whispers into my hair.
Yeah?"
I boysenberry jam you. — Dana Reinhardt

I like the adventures because you know that when they say, "I've got a plan," and then they tell you, you know it's not going to work. And when they say, "I've got a plan," and they don't tell you, you know it is going to work, and it's all very exciting. I thought real life might be like that for a while, so I didn't tell anybody what I wanted to happen, but it didn't make any difference. I knew I was kiddin' meself. — Dave McKean

And I remembered now, too, my inadvertent youthful condescension, when the woman had said, apologizing for some information she couldn't recall, "I still remember the coat I wore when I was five, but I have no idea what I ate for breakfast today." I'd laughed and smiled in warm sympathy. How sweet, I had thought, she remembers her coat. She must have loved it not to have forgotten. But the coat wouldn't ask any effort of preservation. Feeling ninety, and no longer five, there would be the real effort. Telling that five-year old girl, in her beautiful coat, You're all finished. Submerged. Obsolete.
We are ghosts of ourselves, and of others, and all of these ghosts appear perfectly real. — Susan Choi

When you start reconnecting with these missing [parts of yourself], you tend to realize that, until then, you had never really been incarnated on the planet. You thought you were, but if one considers the totality of your being, you were hardly there. You were literally all over space. The result was that you were sleeping your life instead of living it. Only when a gathering of all the parts has taken place inside your heart can you be fully present and find your real purpose on earth. — Samuel Sagan

Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.
"Er ... aren't you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?" said her mother, who'd never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.
"No, Mum, I'm supposed not to," said Tiffany, still scrubbing.
"But can't you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?"
"The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is," said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. "I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe."
Mrs. Aching backed away. "I thought you just had to wave your hands about," she mumbled nervously.
"That works," said Tiffany, "but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush. — Terry Pratchett

Blast it! Where is that letter?"
Sophia pulled it from her pocket. "I have it here."
Sir Reginald's voice lifted with amazament. "You took that from me? When we were-"
"Yes," she said, her color high. "I thought you'd sold my jewelry and that the envelope contained the payment. I wanted proof,so I took it."
"By kissing me?"
Outside, lightning cracked.
"You kissed him?" Dougal demanded.
"Only once."
"Actually, it was twice," Sir Reginald said softly.
Dougal punched him, sending the dandy flying into the wall, where he slid to the floor.
"B'God, that's a nice one!" Red cried. "MacLean, I'd like to see you in a real mill."
"Aye," the earl agreed. "He's got a good solid left."
"What do you know about boxing? Red asked rudely.
"I've seen every large match for the last-"
Thunder crashed as lightning sent shards of light flashing into the great hall.
"That's enough," Dougal said firmly, noting Sophia's pale face. — Karen Hawkins

But this book is about something else: what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It's about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It's about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it. The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man [one of Vance's co-workers] with every reason to work - a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way - carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here - a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America. — J.D. Vance

Some say I loved her to the point of madness, bordering on obsession. She said I put her on a pedestal that her real self couldn't attain. Perhaps they're all right. Perhaps I am mad. And if that's the case, to be frank, I don't give a damn. What I know is that she sets me on fire, and if you were to perform an intradermal test on me, you'd know when she was in it because you'd see the trails of blaze she left behind. Because that's what I feel at the mere thought of her, and I'd rather live my life in flames than be numb without her." He paused, and I let out a breath, but then he said one last thing. "Come back to me, my little Road Runner, my world is cold and boring without you. — Claire Contreras

There were two kinds of storms, Alice thought. One was a friendly kind that you could enjoy watching out the window with a cup of tea. It crashed around in the sky with theatricality but no real malice.
This storm was the other, the killing kind. There are horrors that exist in the night, the bitter wind said, horrors that only children and demons can see. There are horrors that exist in the mind as well, that only the individual can bear witness to. The winter wind sang of things that the mind did not quite remember but that fear never forgot, filled as people are with the haunts and tragedies that make up the shadows of their lives. We can't endure them, the wind whispered, for when the light and warmth are truly taken we are left shivering naked in the dark. Then we hear a nearby husky chuckle that tells us we are prey. — Thea Harrison

When I was at the University I knew a law student named Yamada Uruu. Later he worked for the Osaka Municipal Office; he's been dead for years. This man's father was an old-time lawyer, or "advocate," who in early Meiji defended the notorious murderess Takahashi Oden. It seems he often talked to his son about Oden's beauty. Apparently he would corner him and go on and on about her, as if deeply moved. "You might call her alluring, or bewitching," he would say. "I've never known such a fascinating woman, she's a real vampire. When I saw her I thought I wouldn't mind dying at the hands of a woman like that!"

Since I have no particular reason to keep on living, sometimes I think I would be happier if a woman like Oden turned up to kill me. Rather than endure the pain of these half-dead arms and legs of mine, maybe I could get it over and at the same time see how it feels to be brutally murdered. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Even when people didn't think I was the real champion, I got called out anyway. So now when you get a good win the first person people think of is me. I guess they thought it would be easy, but nothing comes easy. — Danny Garcia

I used to be really into these when I was a kid," Nine says. "Now I'm more into the real thing. You want to join us?"
Five raises an eyebrow. "The real thing? We're going to go kill some soldiers in um - ?" He squints at the open case for the video game. "World War Two. I guess my Earth history must be spotty because I thought that was all over."
"We're going to train," Nine replies, unamused. "From what I heard about Arkansas, it sounds like your game could use some work. — Pittacus Lore

I thought about breakups, how difficult they were, but then usually it was only after you broke up with one woman that you met another. I had to taste women in order to really know them, to get inside of them. I could invent men in my mind because I was one, but women, for me, were almost impossible to fictionalize without first knowing them. So I explored them as best I could and I found human beings inside. The writing was only a residue. A man didn't have to have a woman in order to feel as real as he could feel, but it was good if he knew a few. Then when the affair went wrong he'd feel what it was like to be truly lonely and crazed, and thus know what he must face, finally, when his own end came. — Charles Bukowski

Real, she imagined later on, was something else; it had nothing to do with things you could touch. Real was being seen, noticed, acknowledged, and later remembered. Real was people thinking about you when you weren't in the room. If others thought about you, then you must be more than a made-up dream. You need other people to be real, she decided. Otherwise you might just be a speck, an atom, inventing an elaborate story. It seemed like a paradox, but it must be so. She knew other people were real by thinking about them. Her thinking of her parents and her brothers, her school friends, were proof that they were real. They were both outside and in her head. But how could she be sure she was in anyone's head? — Lynne Sharon Schwartz

This burger is so good, it's stupid," I burst out. "I thought California was supposed to be full of vegans sprinkling sprouts on everything."
"That's at the restaurant across the street. You detox there, you come here when you want real food."
"I love you," I said, stroking my burger like a kitten.
"Me or the cheeseburger?"
"I can no longer separate the two. — Alice Clayton

There is nothing left to seek for in this world when it can be exchanged for another one. No thought of gain or loss, winning or losing, success or failure ever had any meaning. Fantasy is not real and dreaming is not Being One. You are ready to Awaken to Oneness. And as you awaken the whole world awakens as well. For the world was never more than a misperception. As perception becomes whole, the single mind sees only wholeness. At last you are ready to see with Inner Vision, and you realize that physical sight was nothing but the illusion of being in the dark. The Light has come and it is time to rejoice! It is time! — David Hoffmeister

I climbed the ditch, walked out into the middle of the prayer stones and stared across to the monks' island. If you stood there and thought you heard mass when it wasn't being sung, how would it be different to standing there when it was being sung? Would the mass in your head be any less real? — Jane Rogers

At first, I thought the ring might be a fake, a lie. But it was real to me. When I was always waiting for you, while my heart was breaking, and as I was happy, the ring became real to me because of you. — Ji-Eun Song

You have a very peculiar expression on your face,' he commented drowsily.
'I was just thinking.'
'About what?'
'About how we know what's real. How we wake out of a timeless place and recognize time. How you know me here, now, even when nothing or anyone else in this place is familiar. I might have been wandering through your dream, but you knew immediately which of me will bring you paper.'
He was silent for so long, still clasping her wrist, that she thought he must have fallen asleep without knowing it. He said finally, 'Say that again.'
'I can't,' she answered helplessly. 'It was just a thought. I gave it to you.'
'Something about dreams coming to life--'
'That's not what I said. — Patricia A. McKillip

That's a nice song,' said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time.
It's an old soldiers' song,' he said.
Really, sarge? But it's about angels.'
Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits.
As I recall, they used to sing it after battles,' he said. 'I've seen old men cry when they sing it,' he added.
Why? It sounds cheerful.'
They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will. — Terry Pratchett

But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it. But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it. As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm so glad it works. — Kurt Vonnegut