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USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Thematic Option
Dreams, Illusions, and Other Realities: April 7-8, 2009
He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- Albert Einstein
Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.
- Henri Amiel
It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts...
For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.
- Patrick Henry
There are intangible realities which float near us, formless and without words; realities which no one has thought out, and which are excluded for lack of interpreters.
- Natalie Clifford Barney
Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
- Aesop
Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu.
- Chaung Tzu
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
- Mark Twain
Conference Coordinators:
Rachel Dixon-Cummings
Colin Dwyer
Erin Greene
Colby Kennedy
Stephen Lamb
Courtney Lynch
Timothy Parker
Lauren Perez
Andrew Proctor, Jr.
Jennifer Sheu
Aimee Sienkiewicz
Evan Snyder
Olga Tomchin
Lauren Weinzimmer
Elise Welch
Carrie Williams