Quote of the day.

[full_metal_ox]

We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.

—Lynda Barry, American artist, cartoonist, teacher, and writer (b. 2 January 1956.)



(Edited to add my own photo of the Full Wolf Supermoon of 2 January 2026—arguably in keeping with Barry’s original context.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Oh so true.

[full_metal_ox]

Here’s the quote in full, from What It Is:

There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way that crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together you get a fairytale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it.

I believe there is something in these old stories that does what singing does to words. They have transformational capabilities, in the way melody can transform mood.

They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.

One example: Barry describes her childhood obsession with the Gorgon (as portrayed in the 1964 Hammer Horror film starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, with Prudence Hyman in the title role; it would be years later before she learned of the Greek mythological context.)

[minoanmiss]

I resonate with this so much!

[full_metal_ox]

As I suspect you might with this line from her novel Cruddy:

But when the thing that is scaring you is already Jesus, who are you supposed to pray to?

[minoanmiss]

word.

[full_metal_ox]

And I neglected to consider your present condition; do you need an image transcript of the comic panels?

[minoanmiss]

Nah, enlarging them is suffficient, but thank you a lot for checking. :)