"Dominique (who, like other Catamount girls, had a cache of pills for every occasion) offered me a bennie- Benzedrine?- to elevate my spirits. Adamantly I told her, No thanks! I wanted to face what's called reality with my eyes open.I've made that a principle for my life. Sometimes I wonder if this has been a wise decision."

Reality, Choice, Life, Observation

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"Dominique (who, like other Catamount girls, had a cache of pills for every occasion) offered me a bennie- Benzedrine?- to elevate my spirits. Adamantly I told her, No thanks! I wanted to face what's called reality with my eyes open.I've made that a principle for my life. Sometimes I wonder if this has been a wise decision."

Exlpore more Reality quotes

"To change reality, change your thoughts and perceptions."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Reality, Change, Perception, Mindset

"If some people came into contact with anything real they would be shocked out of their minds."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Reality, Truth, Wisdom, Power

"No," said a voice, "the only thing wrong on a night like that is that there is a world and you must come back to it."

Ray Bradbury, American Writer

Reality, World, Existence, Night, Voice

"They scattered with no melody, no harmony, no rhythm to hold them. If music was emotion and emotion came from thought, then this was the scream of chaos, of the irrational, of the helpless, of man's self-abdication."

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

Reality, Chaos, Emotion, Music, Thought

"The thing that most people didn't understand, if they weren't in his line if work, was that a rape victim and a victim of a fatal accident were both gone forever. The difference was that the rape victim still had to go through the motions of being alive."

Jodi Picoult, American Novelist

Reality, Life, Death, Suffering

"Not the reality, but your thoughts define your destiny."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

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"It is so sad that too many individuals spend their entire lives trying to impress people who are mostly clueless about their true purpose on earth."

Edmond Mbiaka, American Author

Reality, Sadness, Life, Purpose, Truth

"He woke once more to external reality, looked round him, knew what he saw- knewit, with a sinking sense of horror and disgust, for the recurrent deliriumof his days and nights, the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness."

Aldous Huxley, English Novelist

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"It is impossible for a man to outpace his shadow."

Matshona Dhliwayo, Zimbabwean Philosopher

Reality, Pace, Limits, Perception

"We all know there is something wrong with our culture, the state of our world, and with ourselves."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

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Explore more quotes by Joyce Carol Oates

"I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let other people speak... to travel... to experience the world. And memorialize it."

Observation

"I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life."

Growth

"Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light."

Nature

"A daydreamer is prepared for most things."

Creativity

"A three-quarter moon, glowering bone, with a hint of something bruised, battered, scarred. The moon has endured more than anybody can know."

Nature

"Only when men are connected to large universal goals are they really happy-and one result of their happiness is a rush of creative activity."

Motivation

"Nor do I like being told upsetting news-unless there is a good reason. I can't help but feel that there is an element of cruelty, if not sadism, in friends telling one another upsetting things for no reason except to observe their reactions."

Relationship

"It is not her body that he wants but it is only through her body that he can take possession of another human being, so he must labor upon her body, he must enter her body, to make his claim."

Being

"We are stimulated to emotional response, not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by works that challenge it."

Art

"I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in the grip of a dream, we rarely understand that we're dreaming, and will escape by the simplest of methods, opening our eyes."

Youth