I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw, but it was only one of many. For years I had been disillusioned by the Church of England's compromising on everything. The Catholic Church doesn't care if something is unpopular.

Ann Widdecombe

So, I went to Harvard and I got exposed to American work habits. I didn't even realise for a while that I was behind. I kind of had the illusion that I was understanding things. But people worked so hard and the thing I learnt first in America was that people work incredibly hard.

Abhijit Banerjee

The thought of someone spending $20 to come and see me and saying, 'Oh, I prefer the record and she's completely shattered the illusion' really upsets me. It's such a big deal that people come give me their time.

Adele

Everybody needs to show respect to each others' ways and the cultural life that you get on this planet. Don't get caught up on 'I'm brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.' You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492? All these names we're using now are just an illusion made to keep us fighting each other.

Afrika Bambaataa

Since fame is an illusion and death is in our future all we have is the next moment before we are swallowed into oblivion.

Al Goldstein

Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.

Al Pacino

Fantasies can be great, but we shouldn't make the wedding a fantasy, because the wedding is the gateway to married life. It shouldn't be a moment of illusion; it should be a moment of preparation.

Alain de Botton

You can watch actors create their illusions, but if you don't see where they get the pigeons from, you don't really know how they're doing it.

Alan Alda

I don't believe there's anything in life you can't go back and fix. The ancient Vedas - the oldest Hindu philosophy - and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that's true, there's no such thing as a past or a future - it's all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.

Alan Arkin

Without the confidence to know our democracy is functioning properly, we risk more disillusionment, more cynicism, and even more public apathy toward the entire system.

Alan K. Simpson

Because people don't understand what computing is about, they think they have it in the iPhone, and that illusion is as bad as the illusion that 'Guitar Hero' is the same as a real guitar.

Alan Kay

Growing up in the Boroughs, I thought I must be the cleverest boy in the world, an illusion that I was able to maintain until I got to the grammar school.

Alan Moore

As far as I can see, it's not important that we have free will, just as long as we have the illusion of free will to stop us going mad.

Alan Moore

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

Alan Watts

Man, like other organisms, is so perfectly coordinated that he may easily forget, whether awake or asleep, that he is a colony of cells in action, and that it is the cells which achieve, through him, what he has the illusion of accomplishing himself.

Albert Claude

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Albert Einstein

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein

Even though I grew up in L.A., no one in my family was in the movie industry. I've always felt whatever the opposite of disillusioned is. I guess illusioned with movies and with people in movies and things like that. It's all exciting to me.

Alden Ehrenreich

We're still talking about women's rights. We can't be the greatest country in the world. I think once we lose that illusionary veil of thinking that we are, we can face the problems and really try to fix them.

Aldis Hodge

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.

Aldous Huxley

Life and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu