#mirrors

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#life #mirrors #art

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?” “It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else? ↗

— Theodore Sturgeon

#anger #anger-management #defence #defensive-device #mirror

You're an intensely attractive woman. You do know that, don't you?" To her silence, he replied, "You'd believe me if you could see yourself." "I have seen myself. That's the snag, you see." He shook his head. "No, no. Not in a mirror. I know how mirrors work. They're all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of imperfections. If you could get outside yourself, borrow my eyes for just an instant...There's only beauty. ↗

— Tessa Dare

#perception #beauty

You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock. 'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here. ↗

— Isobelle Carmody

#laughter #lies #mirrors #imagination

I have this phobia: I don't like mirrors. And I don't watch myself on television. If anything comes on, I make them shut it off, or I leave the room. ↗

— Pamela Anderson

#comes #i #leave #like #make

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#his #however #individual #individuation #laws

Of course great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service. ↗

— Joan Didion

#been #course #flawless #great #hotels

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. ↗

— Edward Gibbon

#faithful #heroes #mind #minds #mirrors

I liked the idea of having actual magic performed as stage magic, so you could assume that it was just a trick, that something is all smoke and mirrors, but there's that, like, feeling at the back of your mind: What if it's not? ↗

— Erin Morgenstern

#assume #back #could #feeling #having

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors. ↗

— Eugene O'Neill

#each #life #man #mirrors #solitary