Rick Bayan Quotes

I think I probably hoped for it a little bit, but I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist... or maybe even a pessimist.

To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.

You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Idealist: a cynic in the making.

We suppose mankind more honest than they are.

It's good to be a cynic. I'm a cynic. But the best part of being a cynic is somebody proving you wrong.

I guess I don't have a grandiose view of the world in general, and I never believe it when someone else has a grandiose moment.

I went around in my teens and early 20s thinking that life was a con trick. I had managed to grow up believing in all sorts of romantic ideas about hard work and justice and truth, and it seemed the real world was much more complicated and shaded than I wanted to believe.

Well, I won't say I'm cynical. I'd say I'm pragmatic.

God save me from idealists.

Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.

Cynic' is the sentimentalist's name for the realist.

I am not an idiot, and I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type.

Cynicism stems from disappointment. Cynical and faithless people were not always like that. They were filled with possibilities and hope as kids. But they tried and perhaps failed.

I'm one of these people who tries to look for the good in people, but I've learnt that, actually, no, some people fundamentally just are not nice.

Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

The more cynical you become, the better off you'll be.

Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

I'm a realist.

The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth.

I know how ridiculous this sounds because of the job I do but I don't believe in romanticism and make-believe.

I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed. Disappointed in the things that people do; disappointed in the things that people construct. I want things to be better all the time.