#realism

I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empowerment #flaws #freedom #gender #ideal-woman

Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life. ↗

— Olga Grushin

#novel #surrealism #change

'A fine story', said Asterinov .... 'Six months in prison, that tale,' said Sergei. 'Was it the witch?', I asked 'I never know where the Party stands on issues of the supernatural...' ..... 'It was, - understand, I do not know for sure, I heard this at second or third hand - it was the walk through the forest. Apparently I was just too convincing in the representation of a poor man's yearning for money...' ↗

— Adam Roberts

#socialist-realism #money

Love is the jelly to sunshine’s peanut butter. And if I tell you that I’m in sandwich with you, I’m not just saying it to get in your Ziploc bag. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#funny #humor #love #surrealism #age

I stopped making movies because I don't like taking my clothes off. Maybe it's realism, but in my opinion, it's utter filth. ↗

— Debbie Reynolds

#clothes #filth #i #in my opinion #like

We all love conflagrations. When the sky changes color, it is a dead man's passing. ↗

— André Breton

#surrealism #change

A constant human error: to believe in an end to one's fantasies. Our daydreams are the measure of our unreachable truth. The secret of all things lies in the emptiness of the formula that guard them. ↗

— Floriano Martins

#fantasies #surrealism #dreams

The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken cord, that they never free themselves of the shadows that live in the time machine... And if there is a kind thought due them, it may be found contained in the words of the late Gerald Kersh, who wrote:"... there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment. ↗

— Harlan Ellison

#realism #revenge #experience

Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative. ↗

— Michel Faber

#realism #short-stories #intelligence

Neither I nor the four flippers of the sea-bear of the Boreal ocean have been able to solve the riddle of life. ↗

— Comte de Lautréamont

#poetry #surreal #surrealism #life