Quotes about imagination
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“It is youth’s felicity as well as its insufficiency that it can never live in the present, but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly imagined future”

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

Source: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Other Stories

Youth, Future

“I held her close to me with my eyes closed, wonering if anything in my life had ever been this perfect and knowing at the same time that it hadn't. I was in love, and the feeling was even more wonderful than I ever imagined it could be.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Life, Feeling, Time

“It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.”

Mohsin Hamid book The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Source: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“I couldn't imagine that I'd ever fall in love again like I had with Gideon. For better or worse, he was my soulmate. The other half of me. In many ways, he was my reflection.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Love, Way

“Imagine how different a world might be if more leaders took time to ponder the finality of death before racing off to war.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Death, War, World, Time

“There's no need to imagine that you're a wondrous beauty, because that's what you are.”

Tove Jansson book Moominsummer Madness

Source: Moominsummer Madness

Beauty

“Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.”

Gene Wolfe book The Urth of the New Sun

Source: The Urth of the New Sun

Learning

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Variant: There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied int he one, I will indulge the other.
Source: Frankenstein

Love, Rage

“I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

People, Books, Reading

“I've heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true.
-Grandpa Joe”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

Life, Literature, Revenge, Suffering

“I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their imagination.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

People

“It’s very tempting when you really want to be with someone to settle for much, much less - even a vague pathetic facsimile of less - than you would have ever imagined. Remember always what you set out to get and please don’t settle for less.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

“I believe in the goodness of imagination.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

“Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

Life

“Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.”

Jonathan Franzen (1959) novelist

“How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.”

Toni Morrison book Paradise

Source: Paradise

Happiness

“I imagine the touch of someone who loves you so much, he cannot bear to watch you sleep; and so you wake up with his hand on your heart.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Love, Sleep, Heart

“Katie smiled and turned away, knowing it wasn't an illusion or a figment of her imagination. She knew what she saw. She knew what she believed.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Smile

“Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no further.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Girl

“As long as a thing is unknown, it belongs to us in a way that well-known things do not. For we have the opportunity to fill the empty, unknown spaces for ourselves, and in them there is room for imagination and for hope.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Hope, Way

“young children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations… Most of us lose this confidence as we grow up”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Source: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Children, Confidence

“Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt.”

Martha Wells (1964) American writer

Source: City of Bones

“To give up our imaginary position as the center, to renounce it, not only intellectually but in the imaginative part of our soul, that means to awaken to what is real and eternal, to see the true light and hear the true silence.”

Simone Weil book Waiting for God

Source: Waiting for God

Soul, Light, Silence, Parting

“Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

World, Time

“Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.”

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American actress, model

Source: Lauren Bacall By Myself and Then Some (2005)

Flying

“Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

World

“Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Journal entry (July 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

“Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian

Source: Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

Change

“Calvin: I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction.
p77”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

Fear, Thinking

“Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

“Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my readings… if you need little to set the imagination going, I require even less: the promise of reading is enough.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Books, Reading, Parting

“Our responsibility begins with our imagination.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Violence requires few ideas, but nonviolence requires imagination.”

Mark Kurlansky (1948) American journalist

1968: The Year That Rocked the World

Idea

“Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Truth, Beauty, Literature

“Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

Clothes

“The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“2 November. This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Time, Heart, Joy

“While it is true that most people never see or understand the difference they make, or sometimes only imagine their actions having a tiny effect, every single action a person takes has far-reaching consequences.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People, Understanding, Personality

“The truth is always simpler than you can imagine.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: The Red Dice

Truth

“Imagination is a gift given to us from God and each one of us use it differently.”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

God

“… in an infinite universe, anything that could be imagined might somewhere exist.”

Dean Koontz book Dead and Alive

Source: Dead and Alive

Universe

“It is the imagination that argues for the Divine Spark within human beings. It is literally a decent of the World's Soul into all of us.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

World, Soul

“Before going back to sleep I imagined (I saw) a plastic universe, changeable, full of wondrous chance, an elastic sky, a sun that suddenly is missing or remains fixed or changes its shape.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Source: Hopscotch

Sleep, Universe, Change, Chance

“Teachers' using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Source: Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge

Fear, Failure, Teachers

“My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Life

“What an alliance, huh? A Dark-Hunter and a Spathi united to guard an Apollite. Who would have ever imagined? (Wulf)
Love makes strange bedfellows. (Acheron)
I thought that was politics. (Wulf)
It’s both. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Love

“The world is bigger than you know, and scarier than you might imagine. The only currency worth anything is being true to yourself, and the only goal worth seeking is finding out who you truly are.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

World

“But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Life, Truth, Understanding, Personality

“All a person can do in this life is gather about him his integrity, his imagination, and his individuality – and with these ever with him, out front and in sharp focus, leap into the dance of experience.”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Life, Dance, Personality

“Can you imagine what it would be like to know that your life was just going to be a series of days that were
all the same, that were do-overs?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Life

“I'm talking about doing something good for mankind. Imagine how awesome everyone would feel if they knew all that holy stuff was real." -Gregori
"Stuff? Four years of giving sermons, and that what I get back? Holy stuff?”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Vampire Mine

Feeling

“Akhlys lunged at Percy, and for a split second he thought: Well, hey, I’m just smoke. She can’t touch me, right?
He imagined the Fates up in Olympus, laughing at his wishful thinking: LOL, NOOB!”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Fate, Thinking

“Lilly says I have an overactive imagination and a pathological need to invent drama in my life.”

Meg Cabot The Princess Diaries

Source: The Princess Diaries

Life

“To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.”

Ali Smith (1962) Scottish writer

Source: Artful

“…when the person beside you is making you alert and keen and the idea of being with anyone else is not imaginable…”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: An Object of Beauty

Idea, Personality

“In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion

“A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

Future, Personality

“You know what the worst thing I can imagine is? Simon had said. Not trusting someone I love.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Love

“A woman who doesn't lie is a woman without imagination and without sympathy.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Source: Murder in Mesopotamia

Lie

“Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuits of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Study

“I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush? "Axis of Evil"? Come on. "A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain" is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Role Models

Hate, Fear, Evil

“I imagined it. I wrote it. But I guess I never thought I'd see it.”

Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

“The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

“She closed her hands around his and shut her eyes, imagining their bed cut free of this strange prison, floating through space or on the surface of the ocean, just the two of them alone.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

People, Forgiveness, Moving On

“She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: She was desperate and she was choosey
at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what
she imagined herself to be.
Source: Factotum

Beauty, Way, Time

“You can’t imagine the white-hot fury someone who can’t sleep has toward the beautiful dreamer beside him.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Beauty, Sleep

“Though I imagine in your case, trying not to fall just made you fall harder.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Every Boy's Got One

“People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about "these days," imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "these days" and that human nature changes with the times.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

People, Intelligence, Nature, Change

“Imagine the amazing good fortune of the generation that gets to see the end of the world. This is as marvelous as being there in the beginning.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

World

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Books

“If you end your story, it's a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don't, it belongs to anyone's imagination. It stays alive forever.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Art

“We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Life, Happiness

“He sought an adventure but didn't find one. He was inexperienced and besides he didn't have too much imagination.”

Raymond Queneau (1903–1976) French poet

“The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Idea, Sense, Learning

“The scariest, most terrifying thing that I fear?"
Yes."
My Imagination."
I thought you were going to say "Fear, itself."
Then you have a small imagination."
Roland and Eddie”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Fear

“One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Way

“You won't find Earth people, quite the easy mark you imagine”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

People

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.”

Kathleen Norris (1880–1966) American writer

Way, Thinking, Change

“If we could manage any sort of trust again… Well. That would make me happier than you can imagine”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Shadow Heir

“I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Life, Failure, Forgiveness, Thinking

“Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Music, Color, Time

“I imagine that it will not be easy to persuade Mortmain into a bonnet," Magnus observed. "Though the color would be fetching on him."
Henry burst into laughter. "Very droll, Mr. Bane."
"Please, call me Magnus."
"I shall!”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Color, Laughter

“Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Asfixia

Beauty

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge —
That myth is more potent than history.
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts —
That hope always triumphs over experience —
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

"Credo" at his official website http://robertfulghum.com/index.php/fulghumweb/credo/; this may be partly influenced by remarks of Albert Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929): I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. <br class="br">Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Love, Death, Dreams, Hope