Come with me...to a world of pure imagination!
By Colleen Fogarty — Written on Nov 19, 2020
Imagination and fantasy are not just for the young and the crazy. Our minds always have the capability to dream of impossible things, and these imagination quotes will help you unleash your own creativity.
Rejecting the magical power of imagination does not make it vanish, so embrace it. Life is a lot more beautiful when you do.
Fantasy is not the denial of reality, but rather the reflection of it through metaphor which makes it all the more lovely. Fantasy helps us make sense of confusing reality because within the imagination anything is plausible.
As adults, it is all too easy to forget about our imaginative power, but that does not mean that it is lost. We can find it again through books, music, art, observing the world, or even just staring blankly into space.
For reminders of the magnificence of fantasy and how to evoke it, check out these imagination quotes.
1. “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
Don’t knock fantasy for its ability to take you on impossible journeys.
2. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” — J.M. Barrie
Things are only as real as you let them be.
3. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” — Albert Einstein
What is imaginary does not exist, but that does not mean that it could never exist.
4. “Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.” — Criss Jami
Everyone has an infinite, private universe within their minds.
5. “Looking back, I guess I used to play-act all the time. For one thing, it meant I could live in a more interesting world than the one around me.” — Marilyn Monroe
Imagination improves your life, hypothetical or real.
6. “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.” — William Shakespeare
Don’t let reason bog you down.
7. “Fantasy, if it's really convincing, can't become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.” — Walt Disney
That’s why we continuously escape to the realms he created to this day.
8. “There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.” — Patrick Rothfuss
I prescribe you all one dose of fantasy per day. I’m not a doctor, but I am a writer.
9. “Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Good writing can make you believe the impossible is real.
10. “If something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.” — Norton Juster
Fantasy is easy to see if you look for it.
11. “Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor.” — Jack Zipes
Fantasy is just reality in disguise.
12. “Books are keys that open many doors.” — James Rollins
One bookshelf holds an infinite amount of these doors.
13. “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” — Dr. Seuss
We need nonsense just as much as sense.
14. “The great thing about fantasy is that you can drag dreams and longings and hopes and fears and strivings out of your subconscious and call them 'magic' or 'dragons' or 'faeries' and get to know them better.” — Robin McKinley
Two abstractions make a real.
15. “When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.” — Alexandre Dumas
You can dream forever, night or day.
16. “I am going to go into this world, and I don’t care if you and your narrow mind cannot be a part of it.” — Elise Kova
Jump into imaginary worlds even if others tell you that’s ridiculous.
17. “They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to Middle-earth.” — George R.R. Martin
Fantasy is the ultimate paradise.
18. “Fancies are like shadows...you can't cage them, they're such wayward, dancing things.” — L.M. Montgomery
They are free and will free you.
19. “You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” — Tim Burton
Normal is boring.
20. “Dare to dream! If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place.” — Anthon St. Maarten
You just have to decide to make them happen.
21. “When we are no longer children we are already dead” — Constantin Brancusi
Do not lose your child-like wonder
22. “Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” — Terry Pratchett
Haters are only non-imaginators.
23. “Classic fairy tales do not deny the existence of heartache and sorrow, but they do deny universal defeat.” — Greenhaven Press
Fairy tales show us that we will be okay in the end.
24. “Fantasy was always only a reality waiting to be switched on.” — Joe Hill
They are new possibilities waiting to be explored.
25. “Wizard's Fifth Rule: Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.” — Terry Goodkind
Wizards can teach us many good lessons.
26. “Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.” — Criss Jami
Confidence can be harmed, but then it grows back stronger.
27. “Now that I've found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night?” — Ally Condie
The possibilities of imagination are endless.
28. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats
Only dull minds can’t see magic.
29. “Fantasy is one of the soul's brighter porcelains.” — Pat Conroy
Fantasy is beautiful and valuable.
30. “We survive by fantasizing. Take that away from us and the whole damned human race goes down the drain.” — Ray Bradbury
We fantasize for our own good.
31. “Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it.” — D. Harlan Wilson
Fantasy defines reality.
32. “People need stories, child. They bring us hope, and that hope is real. If that's the case, what does it matter whether people in them actually lived?” — Brandon Sanderson
The stories may be fiction, but the thoughts and feelings they evoke are real.
33. “The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.” — Charles Kingsley
And that includes imagination.
34. “Don't forget — no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.” — Charles de Lint
Tell your stories, and listen to others’.
35. “I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.” — Kate Forsyth
Life imitates art.
36. “Everybody must have a fantasy.” — Andy Warhol
Everybody has a mind after all.
37. “We rode on the winds of the rising storm, we ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder.” — Robert Jordan
Magic is power.
38. “Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.” — Terry Pratchett
Fantasy advances us and keeps us alive.
39. “There is another world, but it is in this one.” — W.B. Yeats
Fantasy exists within real life.
40. “Science fiction deals with improbable possibilities, fantasy with plausible impossibilities.” — Miriam Allen de Ford
Fantasy makes you believe in the impossible.
41. “If you are a dreamer, come in, / If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, / A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer... / If you're a pretender come sit by my fire / For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.” — Shel Silverstein
Share your fantastical stories, people want to hear them.
42. “The thing to remember when you're writing is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader.” — Charles de Lint
Fantasy is as true as we believe it to be.
43. “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.” — Lloyd Alexander
Fantasy does not reject reality, rather fantasy describes reality.
44. “Reality depresses me. I need to find fantasy worlds and escape in them.” — Noel Fielding
Fantasy shines new lights you have not yet seen.
45. “The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.” — Ian McEwan
Just as you can return to reality, you can return to fantasy.
46. “Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.” — David Mitchell
Make the impossible possible.
47. “Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear.” — W.B. Yeats
Reality is frightening, fantasy is exciting.
More for You:
Colleen Fogarty is a writer who covers self-care, astrology, and relationship topics.