“There was no substitute for reality; one should be aware of imitations.”

“Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.”

“Men substitute words for reality and then argue about the words.”

“In every new expression of a fundamental Idea there will always be the substitutes, the imitations, dangling from it, as the soiled fringe from a good garment.”

“That history should have imitated history was already sufficiently marvellous; that history should imitate literature is inconceivable….”

“Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.”

“All right. I’m not opposed to reality imitating art if it doesn’t get in the way.”

“Macaulay was the English historian. Adams had the greatest admiration for Macaulay, but he felt that any one who should even distantly imitate Macaulay would perish in self-contempt. One might as well imitate Shakespeare.”

“I loved Molly. Or at least I told myself I did. Or, if what I felt for her was not love, it was at least a plausible imitation, a convincing substitute.”

“Truth is what we are. It is our essential nature and Being. It is the pure Self, the limitless one, the ultimate reality – it is awareness itself.”