Alan Dean Foster Quotes

You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like 'Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be.'

Things aren't always the fairy tale that you thought they were.

Harsh reality is always better than false hope.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

The realities of the world seldom measure up to the sublime designs of human imagination.

But my estimates, for instance, based upon book information, were simply ridiculous, fanciful images of African attractions were soon dissipated, anticipated pleasures vanished, and all crude ideas began to resolve themselves into shape.

What happens when your dream comes true - when the spotlight is on and then it moves away?

Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

Life isn't what it's like in the movies.

The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.

Seeing my parents makes me realise that life is not a fairy tale.

Hope is but the dream of those who wake.

But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.

I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.

Maybe when I was a kid, when you have those crazy dreams about what music is going to be like - a string of No. 1 hits, a limo, and a fairground in your back garden - and then you start as a musician, and you realize very, very quickly, that's not how things work. So I just let go of all that stuff.

I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way.

The bleakness of what faces us is difficult to swallow. As long as we engage in happy platitudes and a false kind of vision of the possible, it may empower you over the short term, but it is eventually, because of the reality in front of us, going to lead to despair and cynicism and apathy. It's better to swallow hard the bitter pill of what we're up against.

Disillusion is the last illusion.

He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality

After all, life is not a Hindi movie.

I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads.

Mind the gap - it's the distance between life as you dream it and life as it is.

Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Apparently, the world is not a wish granting factory.

The world is not a wish-granting factory.