Quotes about real
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“Everyone’s a believer when things are going fine. The real faith is when one becomes patient with tribulations.”

Hamza Yusuf (1958) American Islamic scholar

Faith

“Who needs make-believe monsters when there are so many real ones.”

Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer

Source: The Winter Rose

“Men are like that sometimes - if they meet someone and fall in love, it's real, no matter how fast it happened. But if someone falls for a woman they happen to care about, all they do is question the man's intentions.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Love, Men, Question

“Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Source: Freak the Mighty

Truth, Books, Reading

“The real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.

- Karla”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Life

“Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Loneliness

“Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Life, Death

“Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Truth, Victory, Sincerity

“God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Source: My Utmost for His Highest: Traditional Updated Edition

God, Way, Patience

“Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity's the real challenge.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“real strength is not hitting when what you most want to do is kill.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

“There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

People

“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People, Truth

“Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Love, School

“The real problem with being around James was that he was always the hero. And what did that make you? Either the sidekick or the villain.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Problem

“I like people who have a sense of individuality. I love expression and anything awkward and imperfect, because that’s natural and that’s real.”

Marc Jacobs (1963) American fashion designer

Love, People, Nature, Sense

“In my paranoid world every storekeeper thinks I’m stealing, every man thinks I’m a prostitute or a lesbian, every woman thinks I’m a lesbian or arrogant, and every child and animal sees the real me and it is evil.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: It Chooses You

World, Thinking, Evil, Animals

“I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I
should have given her was a real journey on earth.”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

“The vampire was real. It was only that his true story had never been told.”

Richard Matheson (1926–2013) American fiction writer

Source: I Am Legend and Other Stories

“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Game, Motivational

“The real heroes are the librarians and teachers who at no small risk to themselves refuse to lie down and play dead for censors.”

Bruce Coville (1950) American writer

Lie, Teachers, Dead, Teachers' Day

“Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Women, Men

“Then stop trying to throw logic at nightmares. Sometimes the monsters are real, Anita. Sometimes they're real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster. ~Bibiana to Anita”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Variant: Sometimes the monsters are real, Anita. Sometimes they’re real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster.'
- Chang Bibi to Anita
Source: Bullet

Way

“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Pain, Family, Flowers, Time

“Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?-even if there's a time it goes out?”

Joyce Carol Oates book Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Source: Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Time

“Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

Truth

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Life, Laughter, Sun

“Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Women, Men, War, History

“Let the Seventy-forth Hunger Games begin, Cato, I think. Let them begin for real.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Hunger, Game, Thinking

“I don't care whether I really exist or don't, whether I'm real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate.”

John Scalzi book Redshirts

Source: Redshirts

Fate, Personality

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Imagination, Silence, Past

“How ironic is it to see a bumper sticker that says 'Jesus is the answer' next to a bumper sticker supporting the war in Iraq, as if to says 'Jesus is the answer - but not in the real world.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

War, World, Support

“By the way, only a real man can accept his feminine side."
"I don't know who fed you that line of garbage, but I can promise she's laughing at you right now.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Seduction

Way

“Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love.”

Leon Uris book Trinity

Source: Trinity

Love, Joy

“When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God's gift of grace.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

God, Imagination, Past

“The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind… so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

“We all fall to the floor at some point. It's how you pick yourself up that's the real challenge. Isn't it?”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Stupidity

“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Life, Imagination

“I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books.”

Ann Richards (1933–2006) American politician

People, Books, Heart

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

World, Imagination, Universe

“Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Affliction, Suffering

“My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace.”

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) American novelist and short story writer

Love, Hate, Peace, Memory

“I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Love

“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, Dreams, Sleep

“You," Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, "are like a bad case of herpes, wizard. You're inconvenient, embarassing, no real threat, and you simplygo away.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

World

“If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: I don't want to be somebody's crush. if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what they think i am. And i don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so i can feel it too. - Sam
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Feeling, Thinking

“The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 26
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Appearance, Personality

“True love means you love the real person, not an ideal that you have in your head and superimpose over them. That's illusion and lies to me.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Affliction

Source: Affliction

Love, Personality

“Sweetheart," Bill said formally, "I have always loved you, and I will be proud to die in your service. When I'm gone, say a prayer for me in a real church.”

Charlaine Harris (1951) American writer

Love

“Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Pain

“At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Truth, Fear, Personality

“The only real failure is the failure to try, and the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment.”

Deborah Moggach (1948) English writer

Source: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Disappointment, Failure, Success

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Way, Imagination, Reality, Reading

“What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

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

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

Life, Dreams

“Life's one great lesson was: Do not care. Not caring was a person's real protection.”

Francine Pascal Fearless

Source: Fearless

Life, Personality

“She is brave and strong and broken all at once. As she speaks it is as if her existence is no longer real to her in itself, more like a living epitaph to a life that was.”

Anna Funder (1966) Australian writer

Source: Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

Life, Strong

“You live your life as if it's real……. a thousand kisses deep”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Life, Kiss

“And put me down right this minute or I'll scream bloody murder, then do the job for real!"

"I already hid all the electrical appliances, and I'm not taking a shower without locking you in the closet first.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips book Nobody's Baby But Mine

Source: Nobody's Baby But Mine

“If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Life

“And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Nature

“Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 45, “Interlude—Some Tavern Tale” (p. 333)

Lying

“Don't you know that boys don't cry?' Adam grinned.
'Shall I tell you something I've only recently discovered,' I replied, not attempting to hide the tears rolling down my face and not the least bit ashamed of them. 'Boys don't cry, but real men do.”

Malorie Blackman book Boys Don't Cry

Source: Boys Don't Cry

Men, Boy, Tear, Cry

“She's my baby girl, Quinn. I want love for her. Real love. The kind that makes a man crazy inside.

-Gibraltar to Quinn”

Karen Marie Moning book To Tame a Highland Warrior

Source: To Tame a Highland Warrior

Love, Girl, Baby

“All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

Art, Joy

“Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

Cars

“It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

World, Color

“The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

World, Motivational, Back To Work

“The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske)”

David Baldacci book The Simple Truth

Source: The Simple Truth

Time, Personality

“Writers and artists build by hand little worlds that they hope might effect change in real minds, in the real world where stories are read. A story can make us cry and laugh, break our hearts, or make us angry enough to change the world.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

World, Hope, Change, Reading

“… we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Death, Imagination, Star, Madness

“When people are alive they love, when they die, they keep loving. If love ends when person dies, that is not real love”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

Love, People, Personality

“Even mocking people helped their face stats. In the reputation economy, the only real way to hurt anyone was to ignore them completely. And it was pretty hard to ignore someone who made your blood boil.”

Scott Westerfeld book Extras

Source: Extras

People, Way, Help, Hurt

“live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested… Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1980s, Generation of Swine (1988)
Context: Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish — a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow — to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested...
Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

Love, Drink, Sleep, Time

“Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Problem

“What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get in the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

World, Thinking, Parting

“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

People, Understanding

“Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 254

Pain, People, Madness

“I don't think anyone ever remembers what they were really like as kids. Adults think they do, but they don't. Photos and videos don't capture the real you, or bring back to life the person you used to be. You have to return to the past to do that.”

Darren Shan book Sons of Destiny

Source: Sons of Destiny

Life, Photo, Thinking, Past

“Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Secret

“People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy. Most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening?”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted (1994)

People, Question

“You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

Life, Art, Perfection

“I always speak the truth. Not the whole truth, because there's no way, to say it all. Saying it all is literally impossible: words fail. Yet it's through this very impossibility that the truth holds onto the real.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

Truth, Way

“the Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.”

Jasper Fforde book One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Source: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Books, World

“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.”

Elena Ferrante (1943) Italian writer

Source: The Story of the Lost Child

Life

“Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”

David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist

Changing Consciousness (1991)
Context: Culture is shared meaning. Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture. <!-- p. 185

“To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

People, Feeling, Hurt, Heartbreaking