A Quote by John Edgar Wideman

The title of my book is 'American Histories,' plural. And as far as I'm concerned, my reading of history is it is a sort of nightmare. It is a sort of nightmare, and I'm trying to wake up from it. And as any nightmare, it's full of much that is unspeakable.

John Edgar Wideman

Quote Topics

American Any As Far As Book Concerned Far Full Histories History Much Nightmare Reading Sort Title Trying Unspeakable Up Wake Wake Up

Quote Author

John Edgar Wideman
American - Novelist
Born: June 14, 1941

I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.

Ned Vizzini

What happened when you woke up?" "I was having a dream. I don’t know what it was, but when I woke up, I had this awful realization that I was awake. It hit me like a brick in the groin." "Like a brick in the groin, I see." "I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare." "And what is that nightmare, Craig?" "Life." "Life is a nightmare." "Yes.

Ned Vizzini

You know the actor's nightmare is getting up onstage and not being prepared? I think the writer's nightmare is giving a reading and somebody standing up and saying, 'That's not your story.'

Lynn Coady

It's hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real.

Kristin Cashore

I had the nightmare when I was like nine or ten or something, I always remembered pieces of that nightmare, the feeling from it. I've always wanted to make a horror film and so I always kept thinking about that nightmare.

David Robert Mitchell

James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them.

James Baldwin

Really, a nightmare just really has to evoke some sort of, we call it, dysphoric emotion or something uncomfortable. You could be sad, you could be unhappy; you could be scared, anxious. But traditionally, the definition is you have to awaken from this nightmare.

Shelby Harris

The nightmare? The nightmare was myself. I was my own nightmare.

Diego Sanchez

When I was a little girl, my family was extremely close, loving and really happy, and then overnight, things just became a nightmare, and instead of them becoming a nightmare and getting better, they became a nightmare and just kept getting worse.

Beth Hart

I had, in a way, become 'The Nightmare' in the cage, but also out of the cage. That's why I changed to 'The Dream.' But 'The Nightmare,' is who I am as a fighter and that's the way it's going to stay. I'll be a nightmare inside the cage and a dream outside of it.

Diego Sanchez

Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.

Ai Weiwei

The nightmare of the Cold War was nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person. I don't want to live through that nightmare.

Rudy Giuliani

The cloud computing model may be a wonderful system when it works, but it's a nightmare when it fails. And the more people who come to depend upon it, the bigger the nightmare.

Jamais Cascio

Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.