“Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them.”
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
“When the real and the imaginary become indistinguishable the real becomes a fetish.”
“The imaginary is what tends to become real.”
“Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.”
“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”