REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm. - Ambrose Bierce
Realism falls short of reality. It shrinks it, attenuates it, falsifies it; it does not take into account our basic truths and our fundamental obsessions: love, death, astonishment. It presents man in a reduced and estranged perspective. Truth is in our dreams, in the imagination. - Eugène Ionesco
There is an exuberance in good fantasy quite unlike the most exalted moments of realistic fiction. Both forms have similar goals; but realism walks where fantasy dances. - Lloyd Alexander
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things. - Georgia O'Keeffe
Imagination helps bring out the realism of every detail and only sees the beauties of the work. - Honore De Balzac
The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW. - Shannon L. Alder
Realism is knowing fantasy and reality intersect constantly. Realism is living with the awareness that every act changes the world. - Ales Kot
Denying realism amounts to megalomania. - Karl R. Popper
I don't want realism. I want magic. I live magic. I am magic. - Oksana Rus
Passion is good, but Pros have purpose and realism. - Gabriel Dibble
. . . Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom. - George Saunders
The Gospel worldview equips the artist with a unique combination of optimism and realism about life. - Timothy J. Keller
Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism. - Neil Gaiman
After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood. - Fred Thompson
For real human beings, the only realism is an embodied realism. - George Lakoff
Realism is criminal. - Nuno Roque
I wish to confound all these people, to create a work of art of a supernatural realism and of a spiritualist naturalism. I wish to prove... that nothing is explained in the mysteries which surround us. - Joris-Karl Huysmans
In power, it is realism. - There are many quests at every Mass. (Au pouvoir, c'est le réalisme. - Il y a bien des quêtes à chaque messe.) - Charles de Leusse