Escapists Quotes - Page 2

• Television's escapist programming naturally continues to endorse living beyond one's means as the time-tested American Way and rarely depicts families or individuals wracked by the pressures and miseries that come with excess.

  Tom Shales

  Mean, Excess, Television

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• Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of a museum was my favorite place to go. My mom said I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another.

  Amy Plum

  Mom, Real, Book

  Amy Plum (2011). “Die for Me”, p.19, Harper Collins

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• I like big escapist films. It's odd because the type of comedian I am and the things I do when I'm writing and directing myself usually deal with the darker side of the human psyche and excruciating social faux pas. I often deal in taboos and the subjects I do as a stand-up are quite challenging. But my film roles have been much more fun and escapist.

  Ricky Gervais

  Fun, Writing, Challenges

  "Ricky Gervais Interview: 'Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb', Corpsing With Ben Stiller And The Best Bits Of His Job". HuffPostUK Intreview, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk. July 4, 2015.

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• Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home'. It is all these things but one thing - it is never dull.

  Beryl Markham

  Home, People, Justice

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• I think that pretty much every form of fiction (I’d include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, while you’ve escaped, actually teaches you things you need to know when you go back, that gives you knowledge and armour and tools to change the bad place you were in. So no, they’re not escapist. They’re escape.

  Neil Gaiman

  Real, Holiday, Thinking

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• The problem with most genre fantasy is that it's not nearly fantastic enough. It's escapist, but it can't escape.

  China Mieville

  Fantasy, Problem, Enough

  "Fantasy and revolution". Interview with John Newsinger, www.marxists.org. Autumn, 2000.

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• Men who scorn the idea of submission to the divine Will and are outraged by the notion of a God who requires submission are among the first to demand total submission to the process in which we are involved and seem to attach a kind of moral imperative to willing participation in it. Any other attitude, so they say, is reactionary or escapist or anti-social. Perhaps, after all, they have found a divinity to worship; and, if they have, the only charitable comment must be: God help them!

  Charles le Gai Eaton

  Attitude, Men, Ideas

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• I like to watch MTV for escapist pleasure, but when I saw Snooki, I saw my twin. I couldn't lose myself in the show anymore because there I was.

  Anne Hathaway

  Mtv, Watches, Saws

  Interview with Chelsea Handler, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 16, 2011.

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• The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.

  Henry Miller

  Dream, Artist, Men

  Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

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• One filmmaker makes films that are deep, intellectual, profound and confrontational. And the other one makes purely vacuous, escapist films. I'm not sure the one who makes escapist films is making a poorer contribution than the one who makes the deeper films.

  Woody Allen

  Profound, Intellectual, Film

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• I'm not an escapist, but the value of language is that it can create places that did not exist before. And so language for me doesn't reflect the world, it extends the world, so that it becomes larger and more fantastic and less mired in this school shooting bullshit. It actually builds a future - that's how evolution occurs.

  Blake Butler

  School, Bullshit, Shooting

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• Real life is generally much duller and inevitably sadder, most of the time. In film, you control everything that's going on, so you can indulge the most fantastic, romantic, escapist feelings and fantasies. You can do anything you want. That's why it's very seductive and pleasurable to earn your living making movies because you're not living in the real world.

  Woody Allen

  Real, Seductive, Feelings

  "Woody Allen Talks TO ROME WITH LOVE, the Importance of Music in His Films, How He Feels About Improvisation, and His Outlook on Retirement". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 20, 2012.

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• It seems to me that making escapist films might be a better service to people than making intellectual ones and making films that deal with issues. It might be better to just make escapist comedies that don't touch on any issues. The people just get a cool lemonade, and then they go out refreshed, they enjoy themselves, they forget how awful things are and it helps them - it strengthens them to get through the day.

  Woody Allen

  Issues, People, Intellectual

  "Woody Allen's World: Whatever Works". Interview with Robert E. Lauder, www.commonwealmagazine.org. April 15, 2010.

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• Port Talbot is a steel town, where everything is covered with gray iron ore dust.  Even the beach is completely littered with dust, it's just black.  The sun was setting, and it was quite beautiful.  The contrast was extraordinary, I had this image of a guy sitting there on this dingy beach with a portable radio, tuning in these strange Latin escapist songs like 'Brazil.'  The music transported him somehow and made his world less gray.

  Terry Gilliam

  Beautiful, Song, Beach

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• More than ever, movies reveal themselves as healing, as helpful, as encouraging, as escapist - anything that makes someone get through their day in these times. It's the best form of entertainment, and it's still arguably the most inexpensive form of entertainment.

  Nicolas Cage

  Healing, Entertainment, Helpful

  "Nicolas Cage Interview - KNOWING". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. March 18, 2009.

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• We have to accept as a society that games are not escapist. They really do change us.

  Jane McGonigal

  Games, Accepting

  Source: www.usatoday.com

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• Use them with care, and use them with respect as to the transformations they can achieve, and you have an extraordinary research tool. Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place, psychologically. Know what you're using, decide just why you're using it, and you can have a rich experience. They're not addictive, and they're certainly not escapist, either, but they're exceptionally valuable tools for understanding the human mind, and how it works.

  Alexander Shulgin

  Night, Drug, Understanding

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• It just seems to me that the world's kind of a mess, and the more messy it gets, the more interested I am in escapist fare. Having a good time is something that isn't about the war in Iraq or the Asian flu or the Kyoto protocol - things that are horribly depressing to consider in our real lives. I'm eager to get away from them.

  Eric Stoltz

  Depressing, Real, War

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• I would like to mention some preparations that were required of me. The first preparation is to take a right attitude toward life. This means, stop being an escapist! Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. There are millions of these people, and they never find anything really worthwhile. Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found. That's what we are doing here now.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Attitude, Mean, Reality

  Peace Pilgrim (1981). “Steps Toward Inner Peace”, p.5, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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• Most people who are on the road are pretty damaged. It's an escapist's life. It's not a life that forces you to look in the mirror at where you're at and what you're doing. It's one where you leave the mirror behind. I think that appeals to something in all of us. On the open road, all of your regrets are out the window.

  Gavin Rossdale

  Regret, Thinking, Mirrors

  Source: collider.com

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• People do accuse me of being just decorative or an escapist - well I am. That's what I do. I am other things as well. I transcend the song and give it a different meaning.

  Klaus Nomi

  Song, People, Giving

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• Spread the glad tidings that it will not disappoint Miss Heyer's many admirers. Judging from the letters I've received from obviously feeble-minded persons who do so wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes. I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu. Its period detail is good; my husband says it's witty---and without going to these lengths, I will say that it is very good fun.

  Georgette Heyer

  Witty, Fun, Husband

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• Modern man is a hard driven nomad without any stability, not (as the Bible has it) a wanderer or a pilgrim, but a refugee-an escapist. Instead of meditation and reflection there is only speed, fear and “distraction.

  Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

  Reflection, Men, Meditation

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• My mom said I was an escapist at heart.... that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one

  Amy Plum

  Mom, Real, Heart

  Amy Plum (2016). “Inside the World of Die for Me”, p.26, HarperCollins

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• The neurogenetic meaning of the cultural revolution is now clear. Neurochemicals are designed to be pursuitist, not escapist. They open the nervous system to the possibilities of future post-terrestrial evolution.

  Timothy Leary

  Revolution, Psychedelic, Nervous

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