Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.

Wallace Stevens
About This Quote

The truth is that reality can be hard to live with. There are so many forces at work that we would prefer to ignore. We try to escape from reality by creating new metaphors – stories – about what we believe the world is really like. We need these metaphors to provide us with a way of understanding and coping with the world around us and this is where we get trapped.

For example, few people want to admit that they really do not know how basic human emotions work. They don’t want to believe that people are often hurtful without any real reason, but they also don’t want to think that they are all out to make themselves feel good by hurting others either.

Source: The Necessary Angel: Essays On Reality And The Imagination

Some Similar Quotes
  1. You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. - Dr. Seuss
  2. When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable. - Jess C. Scott
  3. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. <span style="margin:15px;... - Neil Gaiman
  4. We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that... - C. Joybell C.
  5. Nothing in this world was more difficult than love. - Unknown
More Quotes By Wallace Stevens
  1. The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.
  2. Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.
  3. I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.
  4. After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.
  5. I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendos The blackbird whistling Or just after.
Related Topics