Saul Bellow Quotes

'Tell me one last thing,' said Harry. 'Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?' Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. 'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?'

If ignorance were enough to make things not exist, the world would be more like a lot of people think it is. But it's not. And it's not.

The real world is much smaller than the imaginary

I think there's more real in the unreal than there is in the real.

Generally, a lot of the things people think are made up are real, a lot of the things people think are real are made up, a lot of the things people think are spontaneous are cleverly faked, and a lot of the things people think are fake are spontaneous.

It is easier to argue that something nobody believes in actually exists than it is to argue that something everybody believes in is unreal.

How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

It is fun to try figure out the things that really are real and the things that aren't.

Things are only real after one has learned to agree on their realness. What took place this evening, for instance, cannot possibly be real to you, because no one could agree with you about it. 'Do you mean that you didn't see what happened?'. Of course I did. But I don't count. I am the one who's lying to you, remember?

The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.

Your life is what you see in front of you. -An-mei

And if you ever do a survey, you'll find that people prefer illusion to reality, ten to one. Twenty, even.

It's all real and it's all illusory: that's Awareness!

Dreams don't come true. Dreams are true.

Maybe Santa Claus is real. Here's the problem: reality.

They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?

Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real.

Consciousness is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.

Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.

It's hard to tell that the world we live in is either a reality or a dream.

Reality is a fragile thing.

Reality is modest, it won't be seen naked.

There are two kinds of world: the one we dream about and the real one.

Reality is the completion of experience.