A Quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Quote Topics

Faith Disbelief Moment Poetic Suspension Suspension Of Disbelief Which Willing

Quote Author

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
English - Poet
October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834

I prefer to think of faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of disbelief". . . a willingness to be open, to explore, to investigate.

Sharon Salzberg

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.

Stephen Sondheim

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

Lionel Trilling

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as Coleridge called it.

Elena Ferrante

Indeed, Rusbridger has finessed for the Guardian a certain willing suspension of disbelief and is able to credibly maintain conceits and moral standards to which his own behaviour hardly conforms.

Michael Wolff

When it comes to acting, people talk about the suspension of disbelief that you ask of the audience. Before that starts, you have to, as an actor, suspend your own disbelief.

Helena Bonham Carter

We've suspended the willing suspension of disbelief. We have given up that relationship, that almost hypnotic engagement, with the characters up on the screen.

Edward Zwick

Cinema, which demands suspension of disbelief, is an increasingly naive proposition.

Peter Greenaway

The generation of atmosphere, the aura of the uncanny, is one of the most important secrets of magic. It contributes to the willing suspension of disbelief, the feeling that, within the circle, or in the presence of the magical shrine, anything may happen.

Doreen Valiente

I'm a very skeptical guy: my willing suspension of disbelief doesn't go very far when I'm reading other people's SF, and it goes even less far when I'm writing my own.

Robert J. Sawyer

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility.

Kingsley Amis

What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?

Ed Wood

I think, as a coach, you have to be willing to do what's best for the player. And you say what's best for the player: is it better to give him a game suspension, three-game suspension, no suspension. I think each case may be different in that.