Quotes about fantasy (562 quotes, page 6)

“I think that for science fiction, fantasy, and even horror to some extent, the differences are skin-deep.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

Interview with Weird Tales (24 May 2007) http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2007/05/24/george-rr-martin-on-magic-vs-science/
Context: I think that for science fiction, fantasy, and even horror to some extent, the differences are skin-deep. I know there are elements in the field, particularly in science fiction, who feel that the differences are very profound, but I do not agree with that analysis. I think for me it is a matter of the furnishings. An elf or an alien may in some ways fulfill the same function, as a literary trope. It’s almost a matter of flavor. The ice cream can be chocolate or it can be strawberry, but it’s still ice cream. The real difference, to my mind, is between romantic fiction, which all these genres are a part of, and mimetic fiction, or naturalistic fiction.

Thinking , Science

“You always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with the experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality, hacking away at the components.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

As quoted in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, no. 1, (March 2002), p. 115

“Fantasy allows you to shine a different kind of light on human beings. I believe the only valid use of fantasy is to illustrate important human themes.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Interview by John C. Snider (2003) at SciFiDimensions.com http://www.scifidimensions.com/Aug03/terrygoodkind.htm
Context: Fantasy allows you to shine a different kind of light on human beings. I believe the only valid use of fantasy is to illustrate important human themes. Magic in my novels is used in three ways: the simplest is as a metaphor for technology. A good example is a magic carpet. There's no magic carpet in my novels, but if someone needs to travel a great distance, they could use a magic carpet, while in a contemporary novel they'd use a car. The second way, and I think the most important, is as a metaphor for individuality and individual ability. The mediocre world doesn't want individuals to rise above what everyone else is doing. The third way I use magic is as a metaphor for coming out of an age of mysticism into a Renaissance. So, in a way it's the struggle between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance. … I never allow my characters to use magic to solve their problems. Some of their peripheral problems are solved through their magical abilities, but it's couched in terms of overcoming those problems in a thinking way. The major conflicts in the books are always solved through human intellect, through thinking out the problem and coming up with a solution. It's never "I'll just wave my magic wand over the bad guys and have them all fall down dead!"

Light

“I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(24 July 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: There are many words and phrases that should be forever kept out of the hands of book reviewers. It's sad, but true. And one of these is "self-indulgent." And this is one of those things that strikes me very odd, like reviewers accusing an author of writing in a way that seems "artificial" or "self-conscious." It is, of course, a necessary prerequisite of fiction that one employ the artifice of language and that one exist in an intensely self-conscious state. Same with "self-indulgent." What could possibly be more self-indulgent than the act of writing fantastic fiction? The author is indulging her- or himself in the expression of the fantasy, and, likewise, the readers are indulging themselves in the luxury of someone else's fantasy. I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.

Feeling , Passion

“I think what I'm going to do is vary my output, do some straight science fiction and some straight fantasy that doesn't involve mythology, and composites.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

"A Conversation With Roger Zelazny" (8 April 1978), talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2 (June 1978) http://web.archive.org/web/20070701010155/zelazny.corrupt.net/19780408int.html#2
Context: Yeah, the mythology is kind of a pattern. I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology. And from that I got interested in comparative religion and folklore and related subjects. And when I began writing, it was just a fertile area I could use in my stories.
I was saying at the convention in Melbourne that after a time I got typed as a writer of mythological science fiction, and at a convention I'd go to I'd invariably wind up on a panel with the title "Mythology and Science Fiction". I felt a little badly about this, I was getting considered as exclusively that sort of writer. So I intentionally tried to break away from it with things like Doorways in the Sand and those detective stories which came out in the book My Name Is Legion, and other things where I tried to keep the science more central.
But I do find the mythological things are creeping in. I worked out a book which I thought was just straight science fiction -- with everything pretty much explained, and suddenly I got an idea which I thought was kind of neat for working in a mythological angle. I'm really struggling with myself. It would probably be a better book if I include it, but on the other hand I don't always like to keep reverting to it. I think what I'm going to do is vary my output, do some straight science fiction and some straight fantasy that doesn't involve mythology, and composites.

Thinking , Science

“I think that the soul of fantasy—or second-world fantasy at least—is our problematic relationship with nostalgia.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Context: I don't find fantasy to be more or less suited to philosophical questions than any other genre, really. I think that the soul of fantasy—or second-world fantasy at least—is our problematic relationship with nostalgia. The impulse to return to a golden age seems to be pretty close to the bone, at least in western cultures, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's a human universal. For me, it's tied up with the experience of aging and the impulse to recapture youth. Epic fantasy, I think, takes its power from that. We create golden eras and either celebrate them or—more often—mourn their loss.

Interview with Peter Orullian http://orullian.com/writing/danielabraham_interview.html

World , Soul , Thinking , Nostalgia

“I love kids’ fantasy…everything from L. Frank Baum to A. A. Milne … Narnia to Wonderland to Neverland.”

J.M. DeMatteis (1953) comics illustrator

A Conversation With The Legendary J.M. DeMatteis! (2004)
Context: I love kids’ fantasy... everything from L. Frank Baum to A. A. Milne … Narnia to Wonderland to Neverland. These are magical stories that nurtured me as a child and then nurtured my own children, as well. What better legacy could a writer have than to continue that wonderful tradition of imagination and insight and adventure? Comics, of course, pretty much ignore the children’s market. I’ve been obsessed, for years now, with doing some projects that could bring that level of imagination and literary and artistic quality to the comic book form.

Love

“Paranoid fantasies of a dehumanized adversary cannot withstand the common pursuit of healing and preventing illness.”

Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…

A Prescription for Hope (1985)
Context: Perhaps the signal accomplishment of the IPPNW has been the broad-based, free-flowing dialogue between physicians of the two contending power blocs. We heed Einstein's words, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding". In a world riven with confrontation and strife, IPPNW has become a model for cooperation among physicians from East and West, from North and South. Paranoid fantasies of a dehumanized adversary cannot withstand the common pursuit of healing and preventing illness.

“I’m a firm believer that in-depth subjects can be better handled in a fantasy setting.”

Jim Starlin (1949) Comic creator

Undated comment at his official site. http://www.starlin.com/creations/
Context: I’m a firm believer that in-depth subjects can be better handled in a fantasy setting. … Let’s face it, traveling to some far off land is a terrific way to break the mold, to do something different. Isn’t that why we go on vacations?

“Often the only way to look clearly at this extraordinary universe is through fantasy, fairy tale, myth.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Context: Wrinkle, when it was finally published in 1962, after two years of rejections, broke several current taboos. The protagonist was female, and one of the unwritten rules of science fiction was that the protagonist should be male. I'm a female. Why would I give all the best ideas to a male?
Another assumption was that science and fantasy don't mix. Why not? We live in a fantastic universe, and subatomic particles and quantum mechanics are even more fantastic than the macrocosm. Often the only way to look clearly at this extraordinary universe is through fantasy, fairy tale, myth. During the fifties Erich Fromm published a book called The Forgotten Language, in which he said that the only universal language which breaks across barriers of race, culture, time, is the language of fairy tale, fantasy, myth, parable, and that is why the same stories have been around in one form or another for hundreds of years.
Someone said, "It's all been done before."
Yes, I agreed, but we all have to say it in our own voice.

Way , Universe

“I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Kennedy's "focus on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution of human institutions." was quoted by Barack Obama in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
1963, American University speech
Context: I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.

Peace , Dreams , Hope , Nature

“I gradually came to acknowledge that such fantasies or dreams are neither meaningless nor purely arbitrary but rather convey a sort of "second meaning" of the terms applied.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

After having dreams about physical terms, which he initially dismissed as a "misuse of physics terminology" by the unconscious, in a letter to Carl Jung (16 June 1948)
Context: Later, however, I came to recognize the objective nature of these dreams or fantasies … Thus it was that I gradually came to acknowledge that such fantasies or dreams are neither meaningless nor purely arbitrary but rather convey a sort of "second meaning" of the terms applied.

Dreams

“Marxism has been the greatest fantasy of our century.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Epilogue, p. 1206
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978)
Context: Marxism has been the greatest fantasy of our century. It was a dream offering the prospect of a society of perfect unity, in which all human aspirations would be fulfilled and all values reconciled.

“I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him. I know that this is true of A Wrinkle in Time. I can’t possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. And it was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Expanding Universe (1963)
Context: I heard a famous author say once that the hardest part of writing a book was making yourself sit down at the typewriter. I know what he meant. Unless a writer works constantly to improve and refine the tools of his trade they will be useless instruments if and when the moment of inspiration, of revelation, does come. This is the moment when a writer is spoken through, the moment that a writer must accept with gratitude and humility, and then attempt, as best he can, to communicate to others.
A writer of fantasy, fairly tale, or myth must inevitably discover that he is not writing out of his own knowledge or experience, but out of something both deeper and wider. I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him. I know that this is true of A Wrinkle in Time. I can’t possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. And it was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.
Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination; it’s their own world, the world of their daily life, and it’s our loss that so many of us grow out of it.

Books , Thinking , Time

“I was like you once, Tim. Blonde hair, scraggly beard, child-like ears. Full of beans and spunk. I once punched a bloke in the face for saying Hawk the Slayer was rubbish… but that's not the point, Tim. The point is, I was defending the fantasy genre with terminal intensity when what I should have said is "Dad, you're right. But let's give Krull a try, and we'll discuss it later."”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Lyrics, Misc.

“One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling… which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Context: One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling... which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment. We have more or less the same bodies, but very different kinds of thoughts. I believe that we think much more with the instruments provided by our culture than we do with our bodies, and hence the much greater diversity of thought in the world. Thinking is a form of feeling; feeling is a form of thinking.

"Susan Sontag: The Rolling Stone Interview" with Jonathan Cott (1978; published 4 October 1979)

Feeling , Thinking , Heart

“It would seem … that man has been shocked by the war into forgetting how to be a political animal. This suspicion is confirmed by the spread of Fascism, which is a headlong flight into fantasy from the necessity for political thought.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Necessity and Grandeur of the International Ideal" (1935)
Context: It would seem … that man has been shocked by the war into forgetting how to be a political animal. This suspicion is confirmed by the spread of Fascism, which is a headlong flight into fantasy from the necessity for political thought. There is nothing more obvious about the post-war situation than that it is novel, springs from causes which have not yet been analysed, and cannot be relieved until this analysis is complete and has been made the basis of a new social formula. Yet persons supporting Fascism behave as if man were already in possession of principles which would enable him to deal with all our problems, and as if it were only a question of appointing a dictator to apply them.

War , Animals , Forgetting

“What a child doesn’t realize until he is grown is that in responding to fantasy, fairly tale, and myth he is responding to what Erich Fromm calls the one universal language, the one and only language in the world that cuts across all barriers of time, place, race, and culture.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Expanding Universe (1963)
Context: What a child doesn’t realize until he is grown is that in responding to fantasy, fairly tale, and myth he is responding to what Erich Fromm calls the one universal language, the one and only language in the world that cuts across all barriers of time, place, race, and culture. Many … books are from this realm… books on Hindu myth, Chinese folklore, the life of Buddha, tales of American Indians, books that lead our children beyond all boundaries and into the one language of all mankind.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth... The extraordinary, the marvelous thing about Genesis is not how unscientific it is, but how amazingly accurate it is. How could the ancient Israelites have known the exact order of an evolution that wasn’t to be formulated for thousands of years? Here is a truth that cuts across barriers of time and space.

World , Universe , Time

“Most people spend their entire lives on a fantasy island called “Someday I’ll””

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

People

“Death is the only fantasy that becomes real for all humans.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

"Humanity", Ch.II "Ideologies: A way to live", Part V

Death

“The Thousand and One Nights, with its magnificent apparatus of genii and afrits, is the greatest work of fantasy that has ever been evolved by tradition, and given literary form. But it, alas, is not English, and has no English equivalent. The Western world does not seem to have conceived the necessity of fairy-tales for grown-ups — though it has been suggested that the modern detective story is an equivalent — and that is perhaps why it condemns them to a life of unremitted toil.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

English Prose Style (1928)
Literary Quotes

World , Life , Night

“For the most part, romance novels are stories about women finding and taking up space for themselves. And not just taking up space, but daring to find happiness. And yes, romance novels are about the fantasy—the heterosexual fantasy—of having the perfect relationship with a man, but it’s also about women taking power over their sexuality, women taking control over their lives, women making themselves vulnerable to all the intimacies of love…”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

On her views of the romance genre in “Marjorie Liu: Making a Monstress” https://www.guernicamag.com/making-a-monstress/ in Guernica (2016 Feb 15)

Perfection , Parting , Love , Making love

“The truth was her version wasn’t any more or less a fantasy than his. No one would know for sure until everyone knew for sure.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 47 (p. 510)

Truth

“After all the wild claims made about their findings, the experts themselves have finally spoken… In a normal setting, the ASI findings should finish once and for all the campaign of history denial by the Marxists and their Muslim camp followers. But the world of Indian secularism is a fantasy-land where hard facts don’t count for much. So, a great many diehards unflinchingly reject the findings of science.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

World , Science , History

“This group of boys showed considerable: and consistent effects from medication with UML or LSD daily for two to eleven months. Their behavior, ward management, school-room adjustment and progress at home changed favorably with less acting out and less disturbed behavior. They not only needed no other tranquilizing, sedative, or antidepressant medication, but furthermore, unlike the tranquilizers which made them sleepy and groggy, they were generally cheerful and alert. Personnel and families noted the difference. Repeated psychiatric interviews revealed a change in fantasy material which was less bizarre, personalized or disturbing. Depressive, anxious and paranoid attitudes were focused on real objective problems. Insight was impressive. Intellectual changes, as seen in psychometric tests, indicated improved maturity, better organization and motivation with a rise in IQ which was reflected in improved school work. The Rorschach and drawing tests also showed increased maturity and control with clearer thinking.”

Lauretta Bender (1897–1987) American neuropsychiatrist

L. Bender, L. Cobrinik, G. Faretra, D.V. Siva Sankar, "The Treatment of Childhood Schizophrenia with LSD and UML" http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_bender_1966a.html, Biological Treatment of Mental Illness, Proceedings II of the International Conference of the Manfred Sakel Foundation 10/31-11/3/1962, 1966; 2(4):463-91.

School , Home , Family , Drawing

“It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

The Twilight Zone, "The Fugitive" (1962).
The Twilight Zone

Science

“The albino reflected on the power of the human mind to build a fantasy and then defend it with complete determination as a reality.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Pearl at the Heart of the World” (p. 139)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Reality

“There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the Moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society, which we find in our country. And we should note that the application of sophisticated technologies and methods of analysis to our problems is not to be confused with embarking on grandiose schemes, whose primary impact is for show rather than for progress measured in hard economic and social terms.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

Quoted in "List Of Important Speeches And Papers By Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai"
Source: [List Of Important Speeches And Papers By Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai., https://www.prl.res.in/~library/sarabhai_v_speeches.pdf, PRL.res.in, 27 June 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190627181445/https://www.prl.res.in/~library/sarabhai_v_speeches.pdf, 27 June 2019, 113]

Problem , Question , Country , Communication

“Indeed, I scarcely comprehend how one can be a poet without revering and loving Spinoza and becoming completely his. Your own fantasy is rich enough for the invention of the particular: nothing is better suited to entice your fantasy, to stimulate and nourish it, than the poetic creations of other artists. But in Spinoza you find the beginning and the end of all fantasy, the universal ground on which your particularity rests — and you should welcome precisely this separation of that which is originary and eternal in fantasy from everything particular and specific.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Original in German: In der Tat, ich begreife kaum, wie man ein Dichter sein kann, ohne den Spinosa zu verehren, zu lieben und ganz der seinige zu werden. In Erfindung des Einzelnen ist Eure eigne Fantasie reich genug; sie anzuregen, zur Tätigkeit zu reizen und ihr Nahrung zu geben, nichts geschickter als die Dichtungen andrer Künstler. Im Spinosa aber findet Ihr den Anfang und das Ende aller Fantasie, den allgemeinen Grund und Boden, auf dem Euer Einzelnes ruht und eben diese Absonderung des Ursprünglichen, Ewigen der Fantasie von allem Einzelnen und Besondern muß Euch sehr willkommen sein.
Friedrich Schlegel, Rede über die Mythologie, in Friedrich Schlegels Gespräch über die Poesie (1800)
S - Z

Universe , Love , Making love

“He had thought about it. Mostly, after the fantasies, he had let it go. It was done, history. No point in bumping into the furniture while looking back over your shoulder.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Tejano Conflict (2014), Chapter 4

History

“Young soldiers had a lot of expectations and fantasies about how it would be and what they would do and feel. Invariably wrong, those expectations.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 11

Feeling

“The sex fantasies man has, the animal postures, the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - all that is part of that consciousness which is transmitted from generation to generation.”

Vātsyāyana Indian logician

Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti in: The Mystique of Enlightenment: Conversations with U.G. Krishnamurti http://books.google.com/books?id=Y6efkbAiXKoC&pg=PA125, Smriti Books, 2005, p. 125

Animals , Sex , Parting

“Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It (Gormenghast trilogy) is a very, very great work … a classic of our age.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Robertson Davies

World , Age

“If you want to see what’s wrong with Ivy League education, look at The Beauty Myth, that book by Naomi Wolf. This is a woman who graduated from Yale magna cum laude, is a Rhodes scholar, and she cannot write a coherent paragraph. This is a woman who cannot do historical analysis, and she is a Rhodes scholar? If you want to see the damage done to intelligent women today in the Ivy League, look at that book. It’s a scandal. Naomi Wolf is an intelligent woman. She has been ill-served by her education. But if you read Lacan, this is the result. Your brain turns to pudding. She has a case to make. She cannot make it. She’s full of paranoid fantasies about the world. Her education was completely removed from reality.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 262

Reading , Beauty , Intelligence , Wolf

“In their last ditch, the royalists object that this all too bloodless and practical; that people need and want the element of magic and fantasy. Nobody wants life to be charmless. But the element of fantasy and magic is as primitive as it is authentic, and there are good reasons why it should not come from the state.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

When orchestrated and distributed in that way, it leads to disappointment and rancour, and can lead to the enthronement of sillier or nastier idols.
1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Life , People

“Couples should explore their mutual fantasies.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

There's no such thing as a mutual fantasy. Yours bore us; ours offend you.
Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)

“Absence and presence have very primal effects upon us. Too much presence suffocates; a degree of absence spurs our interest. We are marked by the continual desire to possess what we do not have—the object projected by our fantasies. Learn to create some mystery around you, to use strategic absence to make people desire your return, to want to possess you. Dangle in front of others what they are missing most in life, what they are forbidden to have, and they will go crazy with desire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Overcome this weakness in yourself by embracing your circumstances, your fate.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Fate , Grass , People , Learning

“People may point to all of this as evidence that we humans are becoming more honest and truthful, but human nature does not change within a few generations. People have become more obvious and forthright not out of some deep moral calling but out of increasing self-absorption and overall laziness. It requires no effort to simply be oneself or to blast one’s message. And the lack of effort simply results in a lack of effect on other people’s psychology. It means that people’s interest in you will be paper thin. Their attention will quickly move on and you will not see the reason for this. Do not swallow the easy moralism of the day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability. Go in the opposite direction. With so few people out there who understand the art of desirability, it affords you endless opportunities to shine and exploit people’s repressed fantasies.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Understanding , People , Art , Nature

“All of us have masculine and feminine qualities—some of this is genetic, and some of it comes from the profound influence of the parent of the opposite sex. But in the need to present a consistent identity in society, we tend to repress these qualities, overidentifying with the masculine or feminine role expected of us. And we pay a price for this. We lose valuable dimensions to our character. Our thinking and ways of acting become rigid. Our relationships with members of the opposite sex suffer as we project onto them our own fantasies and hostilities. You must become aware of these lost masculine or feminine traits and slowly reconnect to them, unleashing creative powers in the process. You will become more fluid in your thinking. In bringing out the masculine or feminine undertone to your character, you will fascinate people by being authentically yourself. Do not play the expected gender role, but rather create the one that suits you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 12 : Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Hostility , People , Suffering , Sex

“Every so often I come up with a different definition of what science fiction and fantasy do, and I'm always looking for one that describes what they both do, rather than separating them. Currently I'm saying that one of the things they do is look at the effects of large-scale social change on both populations and individuals. Fantasy tends to look to the past, and science fiction to the future, but what is common to many of the stories is change: huge societal upheaval.”

Nalo Hopkinson (1960) Jamaican Canadian writer

On her comparing of science fiction and fantasy in “Nalo Hopkinson: Multiplicity” https://www.locusmag.com/2007/Issue06_Hopkinson.html in LocusMag (June 2007)

Past , Science , Future , Change

“the rest of us shouldn’t be compelled to participate in the fantasy and pretend that men can become women and women can become men. They can’t.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

Twitter.com (7 July 2018) https://twitter.com/patcondell/status/1015501970969366530
2018

Women , Men

“I’m a magician who writes about ideas. I’m not a science-fiction writer. People who call me that are wrong. Most of what I write is fantasy or magic realism or plays about my Mexican-American background.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Bradbury Talk Likely to Feature the Unexpected (1994)

Idea , Science , People

“Far from partaking of this narrative movement toward a viable political future, far from perpetuating the fantasy of meaning's eventual realization, the queer comes to figure the bar to every realization of futurity, the resistance, internal to the social, to every social structure or form.”

Lee Edelman (1953) American academic

Source: No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004), p. 4

Future

“[I]f self-deception has to be risked anyhow, it might be better to risk it to take a broad view than a narrow view. It may be foolish, perhaps even dangerous, to wander too far from the highway and then be the dupe of fantasies; but it may be even more foolish, even more dangerous in the end, to be so determined to keep to the well-tested road that you wear blinkers, see nothing of the surrounding landscape, and find the road itself, all that you can see, more and more wearisome and detestable.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 7, p. 176

Self-confidence

“Hope, I would say, is of two kinds: there is the hope which is a wish-fulfilling fantasy... It can go a long way in sustaining the person in difficult circumstances. It is the kind of hope of Mr Micawber, a famous Charles Dickens character. He was always in dire straits, impecunious, but always living in hope, waiting “for something to turn up.””

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

That kind of hope is astral desire, and will take you, as it took him, through a whole book, but will not of itself do other than sustain your ability to live life from day to day.
Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993)

Way , Waiting , Hope , Personality

“Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. Today with an information "superhighway" now looming on the horizon, we are told that a lack of access to information will doom people to a life of meaninglessness — and poverty. As we look around and observe modern industrial society, however, there is no question that information, in and of itself, is useless and that as more data is generated, ethical and moral decisions are taking on a fantasy dimension in which a "lack of evidence to indict" is the moral equivalent of the good deed.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

Foreword to Words of Power: Voices from Indian America (1994), also quoted in "Vine Deloria, Jr." at Indigenous Peoples Literature (2015) by Glen Welker http://www.indigenouspeople.net/vine.htm

Question , People , Knowledge , Decision

“I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know that the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured. Through civil war, the great depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifices, and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward, and we can do that now.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

History , War , Victory , Angels

“Physics is my religious belief. In the sense that in physics we discover a fantastically wonderful world out there that’s rich in potential, rich in realization, and that has ample scope for fantasy, because the laws are so strange and there’s so much stuff out there to understand. And when you understand it, you understand how that could be.
I learn that I myself am very small. But I am also very large because I contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said. I can process information. I can understand things. I can imagine. I can have fun. That’s the essence of my religion. I learn my religion from the study of what the world is and how it works.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

as quoted by Claudia Dreyfus in: [January 21, 2021, A Prodigy Who Cracked Open the Cosmos (an interview with Franck Wilczek), Quanta Magazine, https://www.quantamagazine.org/frank-wilczek-cracked-open-the-cosmos-20210112/]

Study , Religion , Law , Understanding

“My job is to take you to a place of fantasy and help you escape your reality. Nothing makes me happier than to put on some crazy costume and dance around. It’s what I live for.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to AXS https://www.axs.com/pain-killr-dance-queen-erika-jayne-talks-infectious-new-song-album-and-19682 (2014)

Making love , Reality , Help , Dance

“Is fashion important? Is it important to talk about luxury? Does it really matter if you’re going to wear a red dress or not? Finally, I thought, Because of that woman, it is important. You make people dream. You make people think. You have to give them stories. You have to introduce fantasy. Fashion is how we bring them into the world today. That is my job.”

Alber Elbaz (1961–2021) Israeli fashion designer

Source: Interview, 2009, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/alber-elbaz

Dreams , People , Thinking , World

“The roles that Eastwood has played, and the films that he has directed, cannot be disentangled from the nature of the American culture of the last quarter century, its fantasies and its realities.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

Author Edward Gallafent, commenting on Eastwood's impact on film from the 1970s to 1990s
Gallafent, Edward (1994). Clint Eastwood. p. 10. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0826406653.

Reality , Nature

“I write fantasy. The only science fiction I have written is Fahrenheit 451.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

It's the art of the possible. Science fiction is the art of the possible. It could happen. It has happened.
A Conversation with Ray Bradbury - Point Loma Nazarene University, Writer's Symposium By The Sea; April, 2001 http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/a-conversation-with-ray-bradbury-2001-1131/

Science

“We don't deliberately desire to scare anybody - we design our creatures to fit in harmony with the story and, of course, our forte is the grotesque. That's why our films were classified so many times as horror films, which they weren't. I would call a war film a horror film because in those you see guts split and people being slaughtered, but our films deal with fantasy and are more theatrical than realistic.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Harryhausen on Horror

War , Time , People

“Every human thought passes at the moment of its development into the external world, where it becomes an active being … Consequently, a person continuously inhabits the path he traverses in world space with a multitude of images representing child of his fantasies, desires, aspirations and passions.”

Pierre Piobb (1874–1942) French ophthalmologist (1874-1942)

Source: Book Ancient Higher Magic

Personality , Passion , World

“We now prefer the fantasy…We find comfort in the lies. I was the victim of that for so long. I imbibed everything. It led to a place where I became extremely unhappy. And now I question everything. I believe it’s a responsibility to do it.”

Gabriel Byrne (1950) Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator

On how people forgo truthful living for lies in “Gabriel Byrne: 'There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your fault'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell in The Guardian (2020 Nov 8)

Question

“People have this idea that I'm part of show business royalty. I cherish the relationship I had with my father, and I'd love to fulfill the fantasy. But when I was young, he was a working actor and hadn't quite made it yet.”

Michael Douglas (1944) American actor and producer

As quoted in "Michael Douglas Will Never Stop Working" in AARP (25 March 2021) https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/celebrities/info-2021/michael-douglas-interview.html

People , Idea , Business , Love

“Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 326
Cloud Atlas (2004), An Orison of Sonmi~451 (Part 2)

“Love without communication is like loving our fantasies, which stay with us in our thoughts but we can never face it for the rest of our life.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Communication , Love , Life

“There’s a day to ride thumb on a thunderhead
There’s a day to make fantasy real
There’s a day to deny and a day to decry
and a day for the man with the wind at his heels!”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

Book of Lightning (2007)
Source: "The Man With The Wind At His Heels" · Video at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozofHLXORsw

“In fantasy, more than in other forms of literature, the obligation is to teach something universally true about the human condition.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Introduction to All the Myriad Ways (p. 71)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Universe , Literature

“It is a fantasy to believe that you punish politicians by throwing them out of office. It is when they leave office that they start making the real money.”

Peter Hitchens (1951) author, journalist

2022-06-01
GB News Dewbs & Co

Money

“Overexcited Russian experts should forget their hate fantasies.”

Mikhail Khodaryonok (1954) Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces

"3 Wochen vor dem Angriff: Russischer Ex-Oberst machte 6 Vorhersagen zum Ukraine-Krieg - alle trafen ein" https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/ukraine-krise/3-wochen-vor-dem-angriff-alle-trafen-ein-russischer-ex-oberst-machte-sechs-vorhersagen-zum-ukraine-krieg_id_86370800.html (In German; "3 weeks before the attack: Russian former colonel made 6 predictions about the war against Ukraine - all came true"), Focus.de, 22 April 2022

Forgetting , Hate

Quotes about fantasy page 6

Quotes about fantasy
page 6