Idealized Version Quotes

In reality most people aren't as perfect as they want to seem.

For example, you now look at pictures from 1968, they are hugely misleading in terms of standing in as an absolute image of the time. Because maybe two percent of the people looked the way that we now associate with that time. I was also aware that what I was aiming for is an idealized, utopian version of how people could be together. I found photography to be a very powerful tool because as long as it looks real, it is perceived as real.

I think, as human beings, we try to hide our flaws and try to present this perfect person, this person we wish we were, to our spouse when that causes so many troubles.

Memory is often - perhaps usually - a distorting lens: what we think we remember isn't the way it was at all. It's what we'd like to remember.

I live a much more interesting life in other people's minds.

Most poets, like most people, try hard to be like someone they admire or they are possessed with an image of what they ought to be.

A lot of the material is about the inevitable disappointment people feel as they move through life, and things don't feel the way they expect. No experience will ever match up to the idealized version in your mind.

Often real life is boring and problematic. I love the edited version of it.

It's funny how people fantasise about your life sometimes. But it's so much quieter than they think.