"Reality is a good mistress"

No special reason for these quotes just now, but I was thumbing through a book and chanced to find them.  They are overwritten in a magnificent way ... if you don't know the author search him out, because he's good at this sort of thing.

"We build our fantasies and surrender to them.  Auto-intoxication.  All inside our fucking heads.  A form of narcissism.  But I never jettison my long friendship with reality.  Reality is a good mistress.  She allows me infidelities because she knows I know the value of a cold shower and will come back shivering, but unscathed."

Or again:

"The past is not revered for truths it has revealed and tested at great cost, but is dragooned and corrupted to go bail for the crimes of an arrogant present."

-- Owen Ulph, The Leather Throne, p. 468-9

P.S.  If you actually want to take my advice on someone so crazy, start with The Fiddleback: Lore of the Line Camp.  It is shorter and therefore way more accessible than The Leather Throne.