“I’m surprised that multiple personalities are so much less common in reality than in fiction: what a little disorder it would take, a distraction, a sleep, for one of our minor characters to imagine he was the star, to speak out for everyone else. And that’s what it would be, a change of billing, not of authorship. For you do not write your play—you are just the character in it called The Playwright. The real writer, you never meet.”
#139
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
James Richardson89
American poet 1950Related quotes
“The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician
citation needed <br class="br">The earliest quotations of this give it as anonymous or unknown author. https://books.google.com/books?id=hPIsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA321&dq=%22what+he+would+do+if+he+knew+it+would+never+be+found+out%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIlvi0prz_xwIVTwaSCh0hVwX5#v=onepage&q=%22what%20he%20would%20do%20if%20he%20knew%20it%20would%20never%20be%20found%20out%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=i2MPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA16-IA71&dq=%22what+he+would+do+if+he+knew+it+would+never+be+found+out%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIkMmp8rz_xwIV1BGSCh25lAO0#v=onepage&q=%22what%20he%20would%20do%20if%20he%20knew%20it%20would%20never%20be%20found%20out%22&f=false <br class="br">Attributed
Dan Brown (1964) American author
"Decoding the Da Vinci Code author" BBC (7 April 2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3541342.stm
Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician
Quoted in "'Johnny Depp - From Hell' special," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/From%20Hell%20Special.htm ITV (January 2002)
Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist
"The Long Goodbye," The Guardian (6 April 1994); the quote is from Potter's final television interview with Melvyn Bragg (5 April 1994)
Bill Skarsgård (1990) Swedish actor
Bill Skarsgard on ‘IT’ and Tapping into His Fears to Create a Terrifying New Pennywise http://collider.com/bill-skarsgard-pennywise-it-movie-interview/#images (July 28, 2017)
Bryce Dallas Howard (1981) American actress
Bryce Dallas Howard https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bryce-dallas-howard (February 10, 2017)
“Reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.”
Scott Westerfeld book Goliath
Variant: ... that was what kept the world interesting... reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.
Source: Goliath