One of my favorite passages, from my favorite book, The Phantom Tollbooth:
“In a few more steps the forest opened before them, and off to the left a magnificant metropolis appeared. The rooftops shone like mirrors, the walls glisted with thousands of precious stones, and the broad avenues were paved in silver.
‘Is that it?’ shouted Milo, running toward the shining streets.
‘Oh no,that’s only Illusions,’ said Alec. ‘The real city is over there.’
‘What are Illusions?’ Milo asked, for it was the loveliest city he’d ever seen.
‘Illusions,’ explained Alec, ‘are like mirages,’ and, realizing that this didn’t help much, he continued: ‘And mirages are things that aren’t really there that you can see very clearly.’
‘How can you see something that isn’t there,” yawned the Humbug, who wasn’t fully awake yet.
‘Sometimes it’s much simpler than seeing things that are,’ he said. ‘For instance, if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn’t there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That’s why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.’‘Then where is Reality?’ barked Tock.
‘Right here,’ cried Alex, waving his arms. ‘You’re standing right in the middle of Main Street.’…‘Perhaps someday you can have one city as easy to see as Illusions and as hard to forget as Reality,’ Milo remarked. “
