They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?
Long Haired Man
A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage from which to view this experience. And where most consider their individual relationship to the universe, I contemplate relationships of my various selves to one another.
Man on TV
I want freedom! That’s what I want, and that’s what you should want! It’s up to each and every one of us to turn loose of just some of the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control, make us feel pathetic, small, so we’ll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have got to realize we’re being conditioned on a mass scale. Start challenging this corporate slave state!
Man in Car With Speaker
The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And, once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence.
Otto Hofmann
The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving.
Boat Car Driver
When it was over, all I could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. It was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and I had been a part of that. It was a gift. Life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. I loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses – that’s what I loved the most, connecting with the people. Looking back, that’s all that really mattered.
Woman in Restaurant
The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.
Guy Forsyth
Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each others presence.
Speed Levitch
There’s only one instant, and it’s right now. And it’s eternity.
Pinball Playing Man
Super perfundo on the early eve of your day.
John Christensen
The ongoing WOW is happening right NOW.
Speed Levitch
When I finally woke up, I was like, ‘Whoah, that wasn’t a dream. That was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.’ Oh, man. It was just like one of those, like, life-altering experiences. I mean, I could never really look at the world the same way again after that.
Pinball Playing Man
Dream is destiny.
Young Girl
Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven’t met, but I don’t want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. “Here’s your change.” “Paper or plastic?’ “Credit or debit?” “You want ketchup with that?” I don’t want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to be ant, you know?
Soap Opera Woman
What a bunch of garbage; liberal, democrat, conservative, republican. It’s all there to control you! Two sides of the same coin. Two management teams bidding for control, the CEO job of Slavery, Incorporated! The truth is out there in front of you, but they lay out this buffet of lies.
Man in Car With Speaker
Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?
Louis Mackey
Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead it’s just that it’s been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well, I’m trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it’s ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don’t be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.
Man on the Train
On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.
Speed Levitch
A thousand years is but an instant. There’s nothing new, nothing different; same pattern over and over. The same clouds, same music, the same things I felt an hour or an eternity ago. There’s nothing here for me now, nothing at all. Now I remember, this happened to me before. This is why I left. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible knowing that it is only an exercise. Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, filled with joy and sorrow and laughter, empathy, compassion, and tote the emotional memory in your travel bag. I remember where I came from, and how I became human, why I hung around, and now my final departure’s scheduled. This way out, escaping velocity. Not just eternity, but infinity.
Ryan Power
Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize… that the whole day at work had been a dream. It’s bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free.
Guy Forsyth
The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us.. I’m afraid we’re losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feel good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it were a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite.
Philosophy Professor
As the pattern becomes more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough.
Old Man
It’s like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now you may get the 8 pack, you may get the 16 pack but it’s all in what you do with the crayons, the colors, that you’re given. Don’t worry about coloring within the lines or coloring outside the lines. I say color outside the lines, you know what I mean? Color all over the page. Don’t box me in!
Boat Car Guy
In short, I think the message here is that we should never write ourselves off or see each other as a victim of various forces. It’s always our decision who we are.
Philosophy Professor
If the world that we are forced to accept is false and nothing is true, then everything is possible.
Man 2
On the way to discovering what we love, we will find everything we hate, everything that blocks our path to what we desire.
Man 4
Society is a fraud so complete and venal that it demands to be destroyed beyond the power of memory to recall its existence.
Man 4
To rupture the spell of the ideology of commodified consumer society, so our repressed desires of more authentic nature can come forward.
Man 1
So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet you know, when we communicate with one another and we feel that we have connected and we think that we’re understood I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.
Kim Krizan
I mean, how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that’s my problem. I’m like, I’m trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I’m waking up, but I’m still in a dream. It seems like it’s going on forever. I can’t get out of it. I wanna wake up for real. How do you really wake up?
The Dreamer
The worst mistake that you can make is to think you’re alive when really you’re asleep in life’s waiting room.
Guy Forsyth
Man wants chaos. In fact, he’s got to have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder. All this dread. We’re irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It’s in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies; but we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world, no! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers.
Burning Man
A thousand years is but an instant. There’s nothing new, nothing different. Same pattern over and over. The same clouds, same music, the same things I felt an hour or an eternity ago.
Young Disappearing Guy
Resistance is not futile, we’re gonna win this thing, humankind is too good, we’re not a bunch of under-achievers! We’re gonna stand up, and we’re gonna be human beings. We’re going to get fired up about the real things, the things that matter! Creativity, and the dynamic human spirit that refuses to submit.
Man in Car With Speaker
What’s your favorite quote from the list? Have any other Waking Life quotes you’d add? Let me know in the comments!
Note: Waking Life is part of our collection of movies that make you question reality.
You might also enjoy these related movie quote collections:
This Post Has 2 Comments
Cool. Even after almost 20 years. Quotes are so fresh in my mind.
I know, right? The ideas and conversations in Waking Life are timeless and thought-provoking. Which quote resonated with you the most?