“We're used to seeing fantasy explored from a male perspective, and the way men might see sex, have sex, want sex and even be addicted to sex. But I don't think women pursuing that sexuality within themselves is something that's talked about or experienced as often.” ThinkingMenWayWantMightUsedSexFantasySeeingPerspectiveMalesSexuality Author:Tasha Smith
“I think Eleanor Roosevelt always had a most incredible comfort writing letters. I mean, she was in the habit of writing letters. And that's where she allowed her fantasies to flourish. That's where she allowed her emotions to really evolve. And that's where she allowed herself to express herself really fully, and sometimes whimsically, very often romantically. And it really starts with her letters to her father, who is lifelong her primary love.” ThinkingWritingMeanSometimesFatherEmotionFantasyHabitComfortLettersIncrediblesPrimariesEvolveLifelongEleanor Author:Blanche Wiesen Cook
“Positively, he [Heidegger] shows that the prospect of death doesn't of itself destroy all possibilities of meaning but calls instead for these to be relocated from fantasies about a future post-mortem life. However, I don't think he does enough in this work to show that this relocation has - I believe - a primarily ethical character (in Levinas's sense of 'ethical').” ThinkingBelieveDoeEnoughCharacterShowsI BelieveFantasyPossibilityPostsEthicalPositivelyHeidegger Author:George Pattison
“There's fantasies about what heaven is like and who Satan is and why you shouldn't masturbate or why you should vote Republican. It's funny because it's an election year and their news broadcasts are constantly talking about "Vote Republican". I think that they think they're being subtle about it, but that's definitely not the case. So I'm like, "What does this have anything to do with the nice advice you were giving about how to live your life, how to get along with your spouse etc?"” ThinkingGivingShouldYearsDoeHeavenTalkingCasesFantasyNiceAdviceRepublicanNewsVoteElectionSatanEtcSubtleLive Your LifeSpouseElection Years Author:Brad Warner
“I'm not sure that Eastern culture does either, but I've never lived in India etc so I couldn't tell you. I can say we definitely don't. So people will sometimes come in contact with something strange and think, "Oh, it must be like this" and have a lot of fantasies about it, and somebody who sort of looks like our fantasy version of what enlightenment is can be very convincing in seeming like they've got something and then play that role.” PeopleThinkingLooksDoeI CanSometimesPlayCultureRolesFantasyStrangeEnlightenmentIndiaVersionsContactNot SureEtcEasternConvincingSeeming Author:Brad Warner
“Music and art is about ideas, I think. Especially music. You have the freedom to work with your ideas and your dreams and your fantasies, which is quite hard to do in many other places.” ThinkingArtIdeasHardDreamFantasyArt IsYour Dreams Author:Karin Dreijer Andersson
“I don't deny people their fantasy life, but I do think that we desperately need to start realizing just how complicated our reality is in America. Sitcoms just don't show us that.” PeopleThinkingNeedsShowsRealityAmericaRealizingFantasyDenyComplicatedSitcomFantasy Life Author:Richard Rodriguez
“I think the worst atmosphere for a six-year-old is one in which there are no expectations whatsoever. That is, it's worse for the child to grow up in a vacuum where "whatever you do is alright, I'm sure you'll succeed." That is a statement of disinterest. It says, "I really have no fantasies for you at all."” ThinkingYearsChildrenGrowsFantasyGrowing UpWorstSucceedSixExpectationsStatementsAtmosphereVacuumsAlrightSix Year OldsDisinterest Author:James Hillman
“To me, what I define as defiance, in some ways, is knowing the "reality" and having the ability to possess a realist mindstate yet still working towards the fantasy and still being childish. While still having the understanding and capacity that would generally inspire pessimism: some sort of more realist perspective that I think most people classify as adult. Anything like that and anything that's sort of fun.” PeopleThinkingWayStillsRealityFunUnderstandingAbilityFantasyKnowingInspirePerspectiveAdultsCapacityPessimismDefianceRealist Author:Alex Ebert
“I'd love to do a noir. I think Steve McQueen is so cool. But a classic film is a classic film, and perhaps the fantasy of being those characters should be left alone. You're treading on very thin ice.” ThinkingShouldCharacterFilmLeftFantasyIceClassicLeft AloneNoirTreadingMcqueenClassic Films Author:Benedict Cumberbatch
“I think fantasy literature is the one true literature of hope and imagination.” ThinkingLiteratureImaginationFantasy Author:Vera Nazarian
“We have hopes that we can see rational American presidents; fair, obey the international law, deal with other countries according to mutual respect, parity, etc., but we all know that this is only wishful thinking and fantasy.” ThinkingKnowsCountryLawPresidentDealsFantasyFairsInternationalRationalEtcMutualOther CountriesWishful ThinkingHaving HopeInternational LawMutual RespectAmerican PresidentParity Author:Bashar al-Assad
“If readers like The Thorn and the Blossom, which I would call literary fantasy, I think they would like books such as Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love, Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen.” IfsThinkingBookHandsHappensGirlFantasyReaderStrangerThings HappenShipsMortalsLinks Author:Theodora Goss
“When we tell stories about things that are important - love, fear, beauty - we change the way people think about the world. Writers are, or should be, truth-tellers even when the stories themselves are fantasy.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayShouldImportantStoriesFantasyFear Of Love Author:Theodora Goss
“I come from a nation where fantastic fiction has a very low status, unless it fits into some very specific categories or is written by already established authors. I don't by any means try to hide what I write, but the way people think in categories here is pretty extreme: it blots out discussing the actual work on its own terms. That's made me loath to talk about my own work in terms of genre, because once you get a label, it sticks and poof go a slew of potential readers and reviewers because eww, fantasy cooties.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingTryingMeanMadeNationsTermMy OwnFictionFantasyWrittenReaderFitLowsSticksExtremesFantasticLabelsGenreCategoriesDiscussingReviewersCooties Author:Karin Tidbeck
“I don't think you can have an imagination without having fantasy, and you can't have that rich a life without an imagination.” ThinkingImaginationFantasyRich Author:Jane Alison
“I really wish that peoplewould just say, 'Yes, it's a comic. Yes, this is fantasy. Yes, this is Science Fiction,' and defend the genre instead of saying, 'Horror is a bit passe so this is Dark Fantasy,' and that' s playing someone else's game. So that's why I say I'm a fantasy writer and to hell with 'It doesn't read like what I think of as a fantasy'. In that case what you think of as a fantasy is not a fantasy. Or there is more to it than you think.” ThinkingGamesWishBitsDarkFictionCasesFantasyHellHorrorScience FictionComicGenreDark FantasyPlaying Someone Author:Terry Pratchett
“No fantasies, I don't think. Most of my fantasies have already been realized.” ThinkingFantasy Author:George Michael
“When I'm not actually doing my work, I'm planning it or thinking about it or reading things that on some level are transformed into performance fantasies. I have no active interests.” ThinkingReadingInterestLevelsFantasyPerformancesActivePlanningTransformed Author:George Carlin
“I think what's happening is, it's all - fantasy, science fiction, ghosts, trolls, whatever - finally being called, being admitted to be literature. The way it used to be, before the Realists and the bloody Modernists took over.” ThinkingWayUsedLiteratureFictionFantasyHappeningsScience FictionGhostUsed To BeBloodyRealistTroll Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
“For me, fantasy and speculative science fiction are the genres that feel closest to how I feel about being alive. Like, when I feel the most invigorated by just even a walk down the block in twilight, when the street lamps are just coming on and there's mist and some shadowy thing in silhouette in a window, I naturally invest all of those things with deep mythology and mystery and meaning. I think I need to believe in that version of reality because I get very scared when I don't.” ThinkingNeedsFeelsBelieveRealityWalksFictionFantasyAliveMysteryStreetsWindowScience FictionScaredMythologyVersionsBlockGenreTwilightClosestLampsMistSilhouettes Author:Brit Marling
“I think it would be nice to have a guilt free possibility to act out all kinds of sexual fantasies... So that I think is appealing. And today the only thing that exists like that is called a whorehouse... Where you still feel like you're exploiting so I don't want to do that.” ThinkingWantFeelsKindStillsWould BeTodayFantasyNicePossibilityLike YouGuiltAll KindsBeing NiceGuilt Free Author:Jason Silva
“I think for the women of today, because we work and go around a lot, Armani is ideal - simple and elegant at the same time. It's not eccentric, and everything he does is very subtle. For the evening, I like Gianfranco Ferre. There's a lot of fantasy and creativity in his clothes.” ThinkingDoeTodaySimpleCreativityFantasyClothesIdealsEveningSubtleElegantEccentricArmani Author:Sophia Loren
“I'm not against Kyoto. I just think it's a fantasy, especially considering China's energy predicament and their coal supplies.” ThinkingEnergyFantasyChinaConsideringCoalSuppliesPredicamentsKyoto Author:James Howard Kunstler
“I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.” ThinkingKindBookMightCultureFictionFantasyGenerationsExampleTelevisionScience FictionBritishFamiliarCombinationAustraliaAmerican CultureMy GenerationAmerican TelevisionScience Fiction And Fantasy Author:Garth Nix
“Fantasy, in addition to being great storytelling, moves us at some unique and profound level. It has, I think, the power of mythology, or ancient dreams we have always and forever shared. In it, we find our real world and our real selves.” ThinkingWorldRealSelfDreamMovingLevelsFantasyForeverUniqueProfoundAncientMythologyStorytellingReal WorldReal SelfAlways And Forever Author:Lloyd Alexander
“I've discovered that, in order for life to go on, you have to believe in necessary fantasies such as what you think is going to happen next week will actually happen, the people who are alive right now will be alive next week.” PeopleThinkingBelieveHappensOrderNextFantasyAliveWeekGoes OnRight NowNext Week Author:Decca Aitkenhead
“I had a lot of fantasies about being an architect when I was young, and I think I still do. On a visceral level, I'm very intellectually and emotionally attracted to acknowledging how space functions in our lives, both in terms of pleasure and in terms of control, and in terms of all those factors that form a life. I'm also very anxious and maybe repulsed by how superficial that whole dialogue can become.” ThinkingStillsWholeFormYoungTermSpacePleasureLevelsFantasyOur LivesFunctionDialogueFactorsAnxiousArchitectSuperficialVisceral Author:Tom Burr
“I've always made things either paintings, drawing, photographs, or writing. It's all kind of the same thing. It all involves saying more, I guess. It involves separating life, breaking off this chunk that's devoted to making something. There's a lot of pleasure in that, but there can also be a lot of struggle. There's always this fantasy that you could just live life and not have to think about it.” ThinkingWritingKindMadePleasureFantasyStrugglePaintingPhotographDrawingAll KindsLive LifeDevotedChunksJust LiveSeparatingJust Living Life Author:Moyra Davey
“I think glamour is a female thing. I don't think that's a male fantasy. I think glamour's a female fantasy.” ThinkingFantasyFemaleMalesGlamour Author:Anna Biller
“I come from musical theater, and a lot of musical theater is about accepting fantasy. I think it is more about just being open and accepting.” ThinkingAcceptingFantasyTheaterMusicalJust BeingMusical Theater Author:Amy Adams
“There's so much power in allegory, to form ideas and learn lessons that you can actually take and apply to real life. I think that's why I originally really loved fantasy and reading.” ThinkingRealReadingFantasyReal LifeAllegory Author:Amandla Stenberg
“Just when you think you should start accepting that you're becoming an adult, all your childhood fantasies come true.” ThinkingAcceptingFantasyChildhoodYour Children Author:El-P
“When people talk about imagination, they tend to think of fantasy or something made-up. But really imagination is a mode of perception. Which is maybe why so many artists have turned to the occult. Artists tend to feel like outsiders. Whether they are actually outsiders or not is also kind of irrelevant.” PeopleThinkingKindArtistImaginationFantasyPerceptionOutsidersIrrelevantOccult Author:Janaka Stucky
“All entertainment is an element of fantasy because you are seeing something that is not quite real. There is no such thing as reality TV. Reality TV would be to leave a camera on in front of someone's house. Just leave it on. Then whenever the person comes or goes walking the dog or getting groceries, that's what it would be like. Any time you make an edit, you've lost reality TV. You're either compressing time or extending. That's a term that's been overused and overexposed. I think it's fantasy movies that take the fantasy of movies even further.” ThinkingRealRealityHouseTermFantasyDogWalkingOverused Author:Bruce Campbell
“When we come back to fantasy, I think we're actually coming back to the real bedrock of storytelling. Our national or international genre really is fantasy, if you think about the worldwide myths and legends and stories that we all know, whether we're talking about Little Red Riding Hood or the Arabian Nights or Noah's Ark or Hercules. These are stories that cross many cultures in much the same way that dragons cross many cultures.” ThinkingRealNightCultureFantasyMythStorytellingHoodArabianRed Riding HoodLittle Red Riding Hood Author:Robin Hobb
“As a child I loved fantasy books, I loved Harry Potter and the idea that there is something 'out there' is inspiring to kids and inspiring to me. It's exciting and I think people can relate to it. Even if things are difficult or bad for you, the idea that there is something special within you is positive and true.” PeopleThinkingChildrenBookKidsDifficultFantasySpecialExcitingHarry Potter Author:Alexandra Daddario
“People create the illusion of acting natural, which is what I think most documentarians do in part because of the direct cinema orthodoxies that came into play really in the '60s. That moment of performance is a tremendous opportunity to make visible something hitherto invisible, which is how people want to be seen. How do they see themselves? What are the scripts, fantasies, genres by which they imagine themselves? How is storytelling part of what we are as human beings? We wouldn't kill each other en masse if it weren't for storytelling. We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves.” PeopleThinkingMomentsOpportunityNaturalActingFantasyImagineIllusionDirectInvisibleStorytelling Author:Joshua Oppenheimer
“I think we need to make documentaries about fantasy and storytelling. I think I just started to scratch the surface of a method that allows us to do that. We want to be sucked into the events, suspend our disbelief and imagine that this is a fiction, but actually putting onscreen the gap between who the people are and who they want to be and therefore opening the question about why they want to be this person.” PeopleThinkingFantasyImagineStorytellingImagine ThatDisbelief Author:Joshua Oppenheimer
“I'd love to do a really cheap action movie. I'd love to do stunts. I mean, not myself. I'd hurt myself, but I'd love to direct others doing stunts. I think that would be a blast. The funny thing is, if I really think through this fantasy, I know that the way I conceive of doing an action movie would still lose money. No matter how far I think I'm getting away from myself, it always comes back to something that's not terribly commercial.” ThinkingMeanActionHurtFantasyDirectGet AwayAction Movie Author:Andrew Bujalski
“Science fiction is a weird category, because it's the only area of fiction I can think of where the story is not of primary importance. Science fiction tends to be more about the science, or the invention of the fantasy world, or the political allegory. When I left science fiction, I said "They're more interested in planets, and I'm interested in people."” PeopleThinkingWorldPoliticalFantasyImportanceScience FictionInventionAllegory Author:Donald E. Westlake
“I think we all want to find the love of our life and live our fantasies. What art student hasn't used his art to get girls? What journalists or actors haven't used their craft as well? It's a very human instinct to pursue.” ThinkingArtGirlFantasyStudentsInstinctJournalist Author:Max Minghella
“Internationally and in foreign markets, movies starring women don't make as much money as movies starring men. And then you can blame filmmakers, especially in comedy, which is my bread and butter, because it's become a bit of a boys' club over the years. With the boys in charge you get these takes on women which are either the girlfriend or the mean wife or the girl who appears in a romantic comedy. You're just getting either men's fantasies about women or what they think is the reality about women instead of men just having a healthy attitude about women.” ThinkingMenMeanRealityGirlAttitudeBoysFantasyComedyWifeHealthyBlameFilmmakerGirlfriendMovie Star Author:Paul Feig
“Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.” ThinkingCharacterCareInterestingFantasy Author:Moon Bloodgood
“I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. The way I write is about life and is quite truthful, and there is a kind of brutal side to the relationship, and to the feelings, that makes it somewhat painful, but I think it's a very intense portrait of the relationship of two people. And a bit about what people feel like when they're alone, because it all takes place in one day, and during the day, they spend a lot of time alone in their different - you get to imagine what their fantasy lives are like.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingKindDifferentFeelingsFantasyImagineOne DayPainfulIntenseTruthfulBrutalMe AloneNaturalism Author:Wallace Shawn
“For me personally, I think I just enjoy movies about werewolves or vampires because it's not like an everyday thing. It's something you can really escape into. Underworld I'm a huge fan of because it's a great love story, but at the same time when it comes to vampires and werewolves it's just such a fantasy. It has everything involved in it. Action, it's sexy, it's interesting, there's just so many things involved in it that make it so cool.” ThinkingActionEnjoyInterestingFantasyEverydaySexyLove StoryVampireGreat LoveWerewolf Author:Agnes Bruckner
“I think what I'm doing is quintessentially American because I'm not American - even though I am on the verge of getting my American passport next week - I have a fantasy of what is American. Big spaces, Marlon Brando, James Dean, easy living.” ThinkingEasyFantasyWeekBrando Author:Italo Zucchelli
“My first experiences with fashion were dressing up. It was always about fantasy for me. Dressing up as characters . . . I always thought that's what clothes were - that they would make you into the person you wanted to be. I'm an actress, so I love to act, and I think that's one of the most important things - the thing that makes you feel like another person.” ThinkingImportantCharacterFantasyFashion Author:Cara Delevingne
“Much of the way books get classified has to do with marketing decisions. I think it's more useful to think of literary books and sci-fi/fantasy books as existing on a continuum. To oppose them, to suggest that one category excludes the other, always feels bogus to me. The great Leonard Michaels line is "I wanted proximity to darkness, strangeness"? That's what I'd say I want from a book, regardless of where it falls on the fantastical spectrum - that suspense connected to a particular human character, rather than just some mechanized plot.” ThinkingBookCharacterFallDecisionDarknessFantasyMarketing Author:Karen Russell
“Everybody I knew who was really ambitious and kind of annoying wanted to move to New York. I like it here but that has nothing to do with the fantasy image that goes along with it. You have so many people complaining, "It's not how it used to be." If you look for specific things and you don't find them anymore, that's disappointing. But that's just your disappointment, it has nothing to do with the city. I think it's a nice place-harsh at times, and so on, but beautiful nonetheless.” PeopleThinkingKindBeautifulMovingFantasyNiceDisappointmentComplainingAnnoyingAmbitiousDisappointing Author:Urs Fischer