Quotes about dreams
page 15

“It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Source: The Invitation

Heart

“Dreams can be dangerous things.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“Dreams weigh nothing. - Marie Antoinette”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles, Austria - France, 1769

“There was no closing my eyes and sliding back into that blissful dream of normal. This was my normal now.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

“Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i. e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

People, Time

“There are all sorts of dream interpretations, Freud's being the most notorious, but I have always believed they served a simple eliminatory function, and not much more - that dreams are the psyche's way of taking a good dump every now and then.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Way

“Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

Mountain

“We wake up one day and find we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.”

Kent Nerburn (1946) Author

“His lion and hippo legs twitched. I wondered if netherworld monsters dreamed of chasing rabbits.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“It's all right. It doesn't matter what you do. We're dreaming, you know.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“He was so damn perverse, he preferred to dream it than to make it come true.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

Source: The Artist's Way

Life, Age, Art, Selfishness

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

Time, Motivational, Deep, Success

“The kind of eyes that jumped from a woman's dreams right into her morning and made trouble in the marriage bed.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Marriage

“Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?”

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) American poet

Source: Questions of Travel

“We is in Dream Country,' the BFG said. 'This is where all dreams is beginning.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

Country

“Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

God, Feeling

“I dreamed that Curran and I killed a dinosaur and then had sex in the dirt.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Sex

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Komarr

Source: Komarr

People

“I have a dream of what would have happened if what happened instead hadn't.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

“That is the most common excuse, and the most foolish of all. Love has never prevented a man from following his dreams. If she truly loves you, she will want the best for you.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love

“I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Thinking, Night

“Begin with the end in mind. Start with the end outcome and work backwards to make your dream possible.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“It was a kingdom of dreams — a place where things would be just the way I wanted them to be.”

Judith McNaught book A Kingdom of Dreams

Source: A Kingdom of Dreams

Way

“Deserve your dream.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Merece lo que sueñas.
"Hacia el Poema (Puntos de Partida)" [Toward the Poem (Starting Points)] (1950)
Variant translation: Deserve what you dream.

“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

Imagination, Graduation

“I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Youth, Feeling, Star

“You can't just go out-
No, I'll dream another dream.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Kill

“Roses. Wolf mutts. Tributes. Frosted Dolphins. Friends. Mockingjays. Stylists. Me. Everything screams in my dreams tonight.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Wolf

“He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting.”

Michael Blake book Dances with Wolves

Source: Dances with Wolves

Love, People, Beauty, Country

“The opposite of fear is love - love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: Do the Work

Love, Fear, Passion

“Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Stupidity, Reality

“when we are weary, we speak lovingly of dreams as if they embodied our true deisres-What we WOULD have when that which we DO have so sorely disappoints us”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: The Mummy

Disappointment

“Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

Life

“And if anyone asks, you're Chinese. The boy had nodded. "Chinese," he whispered. "I'm Chinese." "And I," said the girl, "am the Queen of Spain." "In your dreams," said the boy. "In my dreams," said the girl, "I'm the King.”

Julie Otsuka (1962) writer

Source: When the Emperor Was Divine

Girl, Boy

“Supposedly, dreams reflect our hidden fears and secret desires, all clamoring for attention.”

Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author

Source: Full Moon

Secret, Fear

“That’s why we get involved with other people, right? Not just for their bodies, but for everything else, too – their dreams and their scars and their stories.”

Tom Perrotta book The Leftovers

Source: The Leftovers

People

“Sleep seems to hammer out for me the logical conclusions of my vague days, and offer them to me as dreams.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Sleep

“I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

Feeling, Time

“I was having a wonderful time and the whole world opened up before me because I had no dreams.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

World, Time

“The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

World

“In his eyes I saw all the other possibilities. The dream-world possibilities. The fairytale possibilities. The seemingly impossible possibilities.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

World, Fairytale

“What four realms? (Amanda)
Time, space, earth, and dreams. (Talon)
Okay, now that is scary. Some of you guys walk through time? (Amanda)
And space and dreams. (Talon)
Ah. So Rod Sterling was a Were-Hunter? (Amanda)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Guy, Time

“Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

“What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

“Go and get your things,' he said. 'Dreams mean work.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Back To Work

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, Feeling

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Life, Fools, Question, Wise

“I dream a dream that dreams back at me”

Toni Morrison A Mercy

Source: A Mercy

“He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Tess,” he said. “I only wanted pleasant dreams for once.”
“That is not the way to get them, Will,” she said softly. “You cannot buy or drug or dream your way out of pain.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Pain, Way

“When you sleep, your dream world is as real to you as life, isn’t it?”

Richard Matheson (1926–2013) American fiction writer

Source: What Dreams May Come: A Novel

Life, World, Sleep

“The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

World, Heart

“To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

God, Sleep

“We all live in a kind of continuous dream,” I told him. “When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.”

Jeff VanderMeer book Annihilation

Source: Annihilation

Reality

“HOBBES:
If you don't get a goodnight kiss you get Kafka dreams.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes

Kiss

“Maktub,” she said. “If I am really part of your dream, you’ll come back one day.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Fatima, p. 101; has also been quoted in slight variant: "If I am really part of your dream, you will come back one day."
Variant: If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Parting

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Reality

“Go moan for man. It's the pathos of people that gets us down, all the lovers in this dream.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

People, Lovers

“As I rolled over, stretching out, my only thought was to go back to the dream I'd been having, which I couldn't remember, other than that it had been good, in that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Hope, Way, Distant

“Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming — well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. Isn’t that true?”

Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses

Variant: Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming — well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. Isn’t that true?
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)

Fate, Hope, Change

“If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.”

Patrick Rothfuss (1973) American fantasy writer

“Some people see things that are and ask, Why?
Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not?
Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Cf. Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921), Pt. I : In the Beginning: I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
Books, Brain Droppings (1997)
Variant: Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit.

People, Time

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Star, Flowers

“Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.”

Kent Haruf (1943–2014) Novelist

Source: Our Souls at Night

People, Idea, Understanding

“Dreams and death were old friends of his. He knew how to navigate their dark borderland.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Death

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Time, Deep

“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Hope, Feeling, Spring, Idea

“And very amusing it is to watch,” said Jem. “Did you know you twitch your nose when you sleep, like a rabbit?”
“I do not,” she said, with a whispered laugh.- In my dreams”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Chapter 17. deleted scene- Clockwork Prince

Sleep

“Theof what they will do to you is every bit as sickening in a dream as when it is really going to happen.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

“It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Imagination

“She gave 'The Dream Carrier' to Max as if words alone could nourish him.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Imagination

“You grew up, became a man, had to adjust to taking less than you hoped for; you discovered the dream-machine had a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it.”

Stephen King Dreamcatcher

Source: Dreamcatcher

Hope

“That’s the nice thing about dreams, the way you wake up before you fall.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Way

“It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams”

Don DeLillo book Americana

Source: Americana

Reality

“Everything is perfect on the street again, the world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, but none of us know it. The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.”

Jack Kerouac book Lonesome Traveler

Source: Lonesome Traveler

Happiness, World, Time, Perfection

“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
I said that.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Talkin' World War III Blues
Source: Lyrics:1962 2001
Context: Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all the people can't be all right all the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
I said that.

“Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Sleep, Suffering, Heart

“Dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Life

“Adjust my dreams for me.”

Bret Easton Ellis book The Informers

Source: The Informers

“Our dreams prove that to imagine - to dream about things that have not happened - is among mankind's deepest needs.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Imagination

“You'll find, my friend, that what you love will take you places you never dreamed you'd go.”

Tony Kushner Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Source: Angels in America

Love

“Temptation said that we all dream of committing crimes, but that only the unbalanced make that macabre idea a reality.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

Idea, Reality

“When everything seems to be going well and your dream is almost within your gasp, that is when you must be more alert than ever.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

“There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 2, “The Plain of Fear” (p. 456)
Context: An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

Youth, Sadness, Time

“Where shadows dim with shadows mate,
in caverns deep and dark.
Where old books dream of bygone days,
when they were wood and bark…”

Walter Moers book The City of Dreaming Books

Source: The City of Dreaming Books

Books

“I am obsessed with you, angel. Addicted to you. You're everything i've ever wanted or needed, everything i've dreamed of. You're everything. I live and breathe you. For you.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Variant: I'm obsessed with you, angel. Addicted to you. You're everything I've ever wanted or needed, everything I've ever dreamed of. You're everything. I live and breathe you. For you.
Source: Reflected in You

Angels