“Granted that I dreamed it, yet it must have been real. You know, I will tell you a secret: perhaps it was not a dream at all!”

—  Fyodor Dostoyevsky , book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: Oh, everyone laughs in my face now, and assures me that one cannot dream of such details as I am telling now, that I only dreamed or felt one sensation that arose in my heart in delirium and made up the details myself when I woke up. And when I told them that perhaps it really was so, my God, how they shouted with laughter in my face, and what mirth I caused! Oh, yes, of course I was overcome by the mere sensation of my dream, and that was all that was preserved in my cruelly wounded heart; but the actual forms and images of my dream, that is, the very ones I really saw at the very time of my dream, were filled with such harmony, were so lovely and enchanting and were so actual, that on awakening I was, of course, incapable of clothing them in our poor language, so that they were bound to become blurred in my mind; and so perhaps I really was forced afterwards to make up the details, and so of course to distort them in my passionate desire to convey some at least of them as quickly as I could. But on the other hand, how can I help believing that it was all true? It was perhaps a thousand times brighter, happier and more joyful than I describe it. Granted that I dreamed it, yet it must have been real. You know, I will tell you a secret: perhaps it was not a dream at all!

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Granted that I dreamed it, yet it must have been real. You know, I will tell you a secret: perhaps it was not a dream a…" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky 155
Russian author 1821–1881

Related quotes

Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“What's in a kiss?
Have you ever wondered just what it is?
More perhaps than just a moment of bliss?
Tell me what's in a kiss.
What's in a dream?
Is it all the things you'd like to have been?
All the places that you haven't yet seen?
Tell me what's in a dream.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"What's in a Kiss?" (song)
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "What's in a Kiss?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouajeMalTcw (song on YouTube)
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "What's in a Kiss?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-C3LsISY6Q (A 1981 live performance, with other material. On YouTube)
Song lyrics

Robert Hunter photo

“In the secret space of dreams, Where I dreaming lay amazed, When the secrets all are told, And the petals all unfold. When there was no dream of mine, You dreamed of me”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"Attics of My Life"
American Beauty (1970)

Terry Pratchett photo

“The secret is not to dream," she whispered. "The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I'm going. You cannot fool me any more. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

William Morris photo

“All this I have seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself to see them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing new to me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that were all, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell me after I had fallen asleep.”

William Morris book A Dream of John Ball

Source: A Dream of John Ball (1886), Ch. 1: The Men of Kent
Context: When I was journeying (in a dream of the night) down the well-remembered reaches of the Thames betwixt Streatley and Wallingford, where the foothills of the White Horse fall back from the broad stream, I came upon a clear-seen mediæval town standing up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, grey and ancient, but untouched from the days of its builders of old. All this I have seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself to see them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing new to me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that were all, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell me after I had fallen asleep.

Samuel Beckett photo

“How tell what remains? But it’s the end. Or have I been dreaming, am I dreaming? No no, none of that, for dream is nothing, a joke, and significant what is worse.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

The Calmative (1946)

Israel Zangwill photo

“No… the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you—he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman.”

Israel Zangwill The Melting Pot

The Melting Pot, act 1.

Prevale photo

“You know you are never enough for me, | not close yet, | no more dreams I want you here with me, | don't leave yet.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Sognami
Original: (it) Sai che tu non mi basti mai, | non ancora vicina stai, | basta sogni ti voglio qui con me, | non andartene ancora.
Source: Tarquini & Prevale – Sognami https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Tarquini-Prevale/Sognami/, Musixmatch.com, June 16, 2016

“The glow has gone forever
And our dreams have turned to dust;
I don't know how I can go on,
And yet I know I must.”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song No Sad Songs for Me.

Roberto Bolaño photo

“I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don't have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Charles K. Kao photo

“If you really look at it, I was trying to sell a dream … There was very little I could put in concrete to tell these people it was really real.”

Charles K. Kao (1933–2018) Hong Hong-British-American physicist

In an interview, April 9, 1995, about his efforts at persuading telecommunications companies to use optical fibers, as quoted by [Jeff Hecht, City of light: the story of fiber optics, Oxford University Press, 2004, 0195162552, 117]

Related topics