Real Life Quotes

“I want to burn with excitement or anger and bleed, bleed out my words. I want to get all fucked up and write raw and ugly about all these things I see and am and could be.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles: in search for The Great Perhaps

“Real life is not quite as it is in stories. In the old tales, bad things happen, and when the tale has unfolded and come to its triumphant conclusion, it is as if the bad things had never been. Life is not as simple as that, not quite.”
― Juliet Marillier, Daughter of the Forest

“Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.

“Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.

“No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing.

“But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?”

“The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.”

Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously.

“That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

“Even I don’t know myself... In fact, I don’t know if I really have a self at all, as I’m constantly playing different roles and pretending – not so much on stage as in real life...”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

“Tentacles is my term — the Tentacles are the evil tasks that invade my life. Like, for example, my American History class last week, which necessitated me writing a paper on the weapons of the Revolutionary war, which necessitated me traveling to the Metropolitan Museum to check out some of the old guns, which necessitated me getting the subway, which necessitated me being away from my cell phone and email for 45 minutes, which meant that I didn’t get to respond to a mass mail sent out by my teacher asking who needed extra credit, which meant other kids snapped up the extra credit, which meant I wasn’t going to get a 98 in the class, which meant I wasn’t anywhere close to a 98.6 average (body temperature, that’s what you needed to get), which meant I wasn’t going to get into a Good College, which meant I wasn’t going to have a Good Job, which meant I wasn’t going to have health insurance, which meant I’d have to pay tremendous amounts of money for the shrinks and drugs my brain needed, which meant I wasn’t going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I’d feel ashamed, which meant I’d get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn’t get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing — homelessness. If you can’t get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“My world is about FEELings. Sometimes, these feelings run so deep i fear i will drown.

Creatively, it's a dream to be so sensitive. In real life, it's exhausting, as i tread water to keep myself from sinking.”
― Jaeda DeWalt

“Dream are different than real life but important too.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Most people don't need the help of strangers to screw up their lives; most of them are quite capable of doing it themselves!”
― Lisa Gardner, Say Goodbye

“So what’s the test?"
"Ah, that’s the trick of it. It’s not a test. It’s real life.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity

“After I binged last night -or was it tonight - I was convinced yet again that there were people coming to get me. It was more than just shadows and voices, more than just fantasies....it was real, and I was scared to my core.

My bones were shaking...m heart was pounding...I thought I was going to explode. I'm glad I have you to talk to, to write this down. I tried to keep it all together, but then I gave in to the manes and became one with my insanity.”
― Nikki Sixx, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

“Why use profanity in real life and writing? Because sometimes 'darn it' just doesn't cut it.”
― Jacqueline Patricks

“However, at fourteen years old, she didn’t understand that all those terrible troubles the heroines in her books went through in real life hurt.

That the words were just words on a page, but in real life, the pain was immense. Trials and tribulations to prove your love were exactly that, trials and tribulations.”
― Kristen Ashley, Three Wishes

“There were times when you could feel that the world would be a better place if Annagramma got the occasional slap around the ear. The silly unthinking insults, her huge lack of interest in anyone other than herself, the way she treated everyone as if they were slightly deaf and a bit stupid…it could make your blood boil. But you put up with it because every once in a while you saw through it all. Inside there was this worried, frantic little face watching the world like a bunny watching a fox, and screaming at it in the hope that it would go away and not hurt her.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

“The filmmaking process taught me that I need to be authentic—in my scripts and in real life.”
― John Grooters

“The real world reveals itself like surprise gifts on our doorstep, special moments that seem above and beyond the reality of others. These times are full, beautiful and meaningful beyond words, even when wrapped in pain.”
― Christopher Hawke, Unnatural Truth

“She said, “Look me right in the eye, and tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll go.”

He stared at her. “Miss, I do not love you.”

“Don’t give me that rot! I’m coming with you, and that’s final!”

“Daphne, you just said that if I said…”

“That doesn’t count! I said look me right in the eye! You were staring at my nose!”
― John C. Wright, The Phoenix Exultant

“In real life, you don't get a reset, and you don't get extra lives, and I got the crap pounded out of me.”
― Rachel Caine, Fall of Night

“No one, it appeared to Barney, had anything to do now; the weight of empty time hung over them all.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

“When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat. After a while it becomes more innovative in thinking up how to lose than thinnking up how to win.”
― Pat Riley, The Winner Within: A Life Plan for Team Players

“Real life is messy and hard and never turns out like I’ve imagined. Usually it’s better. So, I try not to dream but rather to pray. If there is one thing I know, it’s that I have no clue what I want. I’m fickle. I’m picky. And I’m scared of a lot of things. Especially commitment.”
― Katie Kiesler, 22 and Single

“(...) The floor itself was inscribed with a mosaic in the data-pattern mode, representing the entire body of the Curia case law. At the center, small icons representing constitutional principles sent out lines to each case in which they were quoted; bright lines for controlling precedent, dim lines for dissenting opinions or dicta. Each case quoted in a later case sent out additional lines, till the concentric circles of floor-icons were meshed in a complex network.

The jest of the architect was clear to Phaethon. The floor mosaic was meant to represent the fixed immutability of the law; but the play of light from the pool above made it seem to ripple and sway and change with each little breeze.

Above the floor, not touching it, without sound or motion, hovered three massive cubes of black material.

These cubes were the manifestations of the Judges. The cube shape symbolized the solidity and implacable majesty of the law. Their high position showed they were above emotionalism or earthly appeals. The crown of each cube bore a thick-armed double helix of heavy gold.

The gold spirals atop the black cubes were symbols of life, motion, and energy. Perhaps they represented the active intellects of the Curia. Or perhaps they represented that life and civilization rested on the solid foundations of the law. If so, this was another jest of the architect. The law, it seemed, rested on nothing.”
― John C. Wright, The Golden Age

“Oh, you mean like Orpheo rescuing Euniphon from the Underworld?” said Roland.

Rob Anybody just stared.

“It’s a myth from Ephebe,” Roland went on. “It’s supposed to be a love story, but it’s really a metaphor for the annual return of summer. There’s a lot of versions of that story.”

(...)

“A metaphor is a kind o’ lie to help people understand what’s true,” said Billy Bigchin, but this didn’t help much.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

“Strike experienced a moment of pure clarity: he would never make it out of here, would never rise above his current position as Rodney’s lieutenant, because all the intelligence and prudence and vision came to nothing if it wasn’t tempered and supported by a certain blindness, an oblivious animal will that Rodney had, that he, Strike, did not have.
Rodney would survive all this not because of his guts or his brains, but because he understood that there was no real life out here on the street, no real lives other than his own, and that what really mattered was coming first in all things, in all ways and at all costs.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it.”
― Leo Rosten

“When writing fiction, you learn to only put things and characters in, that are going to progress your story. There is something to be learned about that approach in real life”
― Carl Henegan, Darkness Left Undone

“One has to live a life that creates a writer.”
― Erno Paasilinna

“Don't separate 'real' life from 'creative' life.”
― Patti Digh, Creative Is a Verb: If You're Alive, You're Creative

“There was the dream of happiness and then there was what was real.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, Somebody Else's Daughter

“It a sad fact that in life we seldom get to choose our responsibilities”
― Nigel Hickey

“Sonya's a real person, like your Mother. Thirty years ago, that was your Mother's biggest flaw in my eyes, and now that's the thing I love most about Sonya. It's funny how things end, isn't it?”
― Matthew Norman, Domestic Violets