Anna Quindlen Quotes

Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another.

Many people would rather have fine words and false hopes than the truth which is unacceptable.

A lie to me is a dream that might come true.

Hope is the denial of reality.

We have a never sated appetite for self deception.

The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.

It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.

They like to tell us that it is important to speak the truth, but it has been my experience that real happiness lies in having people tell you what you want to believe, usually not the same thing at all, and if you have to stub your toe on the truth later, so be it.

Life being full of harsh realities, we seek relief from them in a variety of pleasing delusions.

College education gives you the chance to earn money and live thereupon. But, umless it destroys certain illusions that are nourished by the common level of mankind, your lives will not be happy.

It makes sense to work towards a better world, but it doesn't make any sense to have illusions about what the real world is.

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.

I got a dream that's worth more than my reality.

You convinced yourselves we're just a bunch of regular lads who got a bad break in life. Anything else would have cracked your dream open and made you face reality. Illusion is easy. Illusion is the loser's way out. Your way.

Apparently, the world is not a wish granting factory.

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Sometimes a happy delusion is better than grim reality.

Nothing is easier than self-deceit.

You can't live without illusions, even if you must fight for them.

Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

In no way did I allow reality as it was to intrude on reality as I wanted it to be.

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.