I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

It was hard and sour, but, as Poushkin said, the illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. I saw a happy man, one whose dearest dream had come true, who had attained his goal in life, who had got what he wanted, and was pleased with his destiny and with himself.

Tamani was suddenly struck by just how young David looked. He forgot, sometimes, that David, Laurel, and their friends were younger, in some ways much younger, than Tamani. He was posing as a school-age human, but in truth he was an officer in the Guard. He knew his place, he knew his role, with a certainty some humans never achieved. The amount of freedom human children had must be paralyzing. No wonder they took so long to become adults.

War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living.

Remember seeker, our earthly perceptions of reality are just an illusion.

...He had few illusions, for here are some of the things that life had taught him: 'Men hate those whom they have injured; men love those whom they have benefited; men naturally avoid their benefactors; men are universally actuated by self-interest; gratitude is a lovely sense of expected benefits; promises are never forgotten by those to whom they are made, usually by those who make them.

And when I fall in love,” I began, 'I will build a mountain to touch the sky. Then, my lover and I will have the best of both worlds, reality firmly under our feet, while we have our heads in the clouds with all our illusions still intact. And the purple grass will grow all around, high enough to reach our eyes.

The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.

Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and he does.

Manifest plainness,Embrace simplicity,Reduce selfishness,Have few desires.