Mirrors Quotes

“Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?”
“It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else?”
― Theodore Sturgeon, Venus Plus X

“I realize that humans lack good mirrors. It’s so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show anyone how we feel.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“What do you mean, Phib?" asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us, she saw - not herself, but the reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock.
'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Jews put black over mirrors during times os mourning so they wouldn't think about themselves. But I never did look in mirrors anyway, because I disliked myself. No, wait. I disliked my appearance.”
― Nancy Werlin, Black Mirror

“The mirror had broken into millions of pieces and the wind blew them all over the world. If a person got a speck in their eye, the person would only see the ugly side of things from then on, but if a piece got in their blood and it reached their heart, it would freeze into a solid block of ice and they couldn't feel anything anymore”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“People look into mirrors with such unguarded curiosity, never thinking that someone else is looking back.”
― Ryan La Sala, Beholder

“Many of you are walking mirrors. So you will forever be projected on. That is why you need to learn how to not take it personally or feed into people’s misconceptions of you. Let it roll off of your back and keep moving forward. They have their own issues and lessons to deal with.”
― Robin S. Baker

“There are no mirrors of any kind in here. If there were, I’d want to smash them, but I wouldn’t. Instead, I’d probably just stare at them, giving myself negative affirmations.”
― Rasmenia Massoud, Human Detritus

“I love mirrors,’ he had once heard Fulgrim say. ‘They let one pass through the surface of things.”
― Graham McNeill, The Reflection Crack'd

“People’s eyes reflect better than a mirror.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“The Lucky Looking Glass by Stewart Stafford

Woken from a nightmare,
He walked to his bathroom,
Treading on a hand mirror,
Breaking it, to his horror.

Payback of a reflection dodged,
With a lifespan of scars healed,
Dark energies bilaterally wiped,
A poisonous duo counterbalanced.

From then on, Plutus's grin shone,
A Midas touch with an off switch,
Winning streaks of a Texan width,
Cracked mirror coffin for the next life.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“belief in the Fish is part of a larger myth that goes back to the legendary times of the Yellow Emperor. In those days the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. They were, besides, quite different; neither beings nor colors nor shapes were the same. Both kingdoms, the specular and the human, lived in harmony; you could come and go through mirrors.

One night the mirror people invaded the earth. Their power was great, but at the end of bloody warfare the magic arts of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. He repulsed the invaders, imprisoned them in their mirrors, and forced on them the task of repeating, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of men. He stripped them of their power and of their forms and reduced them to mere slavish reflections.

Nonetheless, a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off. The first to awaken will be the Fish. Deep in the mirror we will perceive a very faint line and the color of this line will be like no other color. Later on, other shapes will begin to stir. Little by little they will differ from us; little by little they will not imitate us. They will break through the barriers of glass or metal and this time will not be defeated. Side by side with these mirror creatures, the creatures of water will join the battle. In Yunnan they do not speak of the Fish but of the Tiger of the Mirror. Others believe that in advance of the invasion we will hear from the depths of mirrors the clatter of weapons.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings

“We reflect each other as mirrors do, but there is no need to look at mirrors that distort our reflection.”
― Elena Goldberg

“Recognizing our intrinsic worth entails rejecting anyone’s verbal or non-verbal assessments. We are not mere company shares in a venture market; we are the sole architects of our lives, and only we understand the odyssey we have endured.”
― Elena Y. Goldberg

“We reflect each other as mirrors do, but there is no need to look at mirrors that distort our reflection.”
― Elena Y. Goldberg

“What better mirror is there than the face of an old friend? Only those we love have the power to show us our true selves.”
― Graham McNeill, The Reflection Crack'd

“Fae magic is not just innate, but it is ever present, always taking from the world around it. Our magic never goes dormant, and this allows us to more immediately feel the bonds for what they are. A witch’s magic is equally innate, but it must be practiced with intention. When a witch channels the energy of their mirror, when their magic flows together, only then are they able to experience the full weight of this connection.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“How do I channel Emyr’s energy? [...] Cavenia says I can feel the bond from his end, but I have to channel him to do it. How do I do that?”


“You have already done it. [...] When you brought him back from the dead. [...] I can see the mark of his energy in your blood, Wyatt. And Emyr, Wyatt’s is anchored within you. It is clear to me that your magic nearly faded. That you were almost snuffed out—from all worlds. But Wyatt brought you back.” She tilts her eyes toward me, all at once. “And you did that by tapping into his power.”

I remember it clearly, more than I’d like to. The feeling of Emyr’s body in my arms, dead but still warm. The darkness around us, lit up by flecks of gold.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“Do you…do you know how long I’ll have?” Emyr asks here, and his claws dig into my thigh. I reach down and put my hand over his. I don’t pull his fingers away. “I know that resurrection magic is rarely permanent. My—my mother—”

Vorgaine reaches across the table and lays her hand across the back of Emyr’s. He stills under her touch, and tilts his head up to stare into her eyes.

“I am sorry about your mother, Emyr. That never should have happened.” She shakes her head. “But I can tell you this. Wyatt’s energy is permanently, and inextricably, tangled with yours. For as long as one of you lives, the other cannot die.”

And just like that, with one sentence, a thousand pounds of invisible weight, sitting on my chest for the last few weeks, disappears.

Our world is on fire. Everything we’ve ever known is a lie. We could both die tomorrow.


But Emyr isn’t going anywhere without me. I am not going to lose him.

Never again.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“Wyatt’s energy is permanently, and inextricably, tangled with yours. For as long as one of you lives, the other cannot die.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“A mirror helps to fall in love with yourself.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“In dim mirrors now I see;
Who God wants me to be.”
― Cali Willette, Fractures of Gold

“Not everything that is recorded can be decoded and not everything that is encoded can be recorded.”
― Goitsemang Mvula

“Everyone knows this fairy tale:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"
"Why, you are, of course."

In the corner of their hearts, everyone is looking for a magic mirror. If there was a mirror that would reflect the image of them as they fervently wished to be, surely everyone would treasure such a mirror for as long as they lived.

On the other hand, there are mirrors that don't do that, such as concave mirrors and convex mirrors. For a long time there have been two full-length fun-house mirrors on the observation deck of the Tsūtenkaku tower in Osaka. For people from other parts of Japan who are not familiar with Osaka's fun-loving and idiosyncratic culture, why such things are in that particular place is a complete mystery; but in any case, it is amusing to play with them.

When you stand in front of the concave mirror, you appear stretched out as though you are being pulled up and down by your head and your toes—as though you have been transformed into a toothpick. In front of the convex mirror it is the reverse: you look short and fat as though you have been squashed in a mechanical press. Unsightly and with short legs, you look like a comic book character. Tourists look at their distorted appearances and laugh. But how can they laugh at such warped reflections? Is it because they can relax knowing that they could not possibly look like the twisted images in the mirror? People do not believe they really look like the grossly distorted images in fun-house mirrors, so they laugh them off. However, when a magic mirror reflects an image distorted in a beautiful way, people want to think: yes indeed, this is how I really look.

All of you astute readers should understand by now. The image reflected in the mirror that I am talking about in this book is the image of Japan drawn by foreigners. However, this brings up a question. What kind of a distorted image would a Japanese accept as being him or herself? What sort of a distorted image would he or she laugh off? Where exactly is the boundary between the two?”
― Shoji Yamada, Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West

“Chidren wish for a world pristine,
poets, to think, need a sheet that is clean,
clean, if, the sky, means the weather is good,
clear water - a mirror, reflects, like it should,
clear thoughts make for a clearer mind,
clean must be every creature, in kind,
over every forest, the air is clean,
every tree has its own dream…”
― Will Advise, На чист Български...: Pristine Bulgarian sayings...

“And he said...

...if there is a need to self-reflect, change the mirrors before you become ashamed of yourself.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“There are so few people who see themselves as they are in the mirror that the poor mirrors blame themselves, thinking it is their own fault!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“One of these Folk bowed to Lord Taran and passed him a hand mirror. It was wrought from pure silver, its frame an intricate and uneven scalloped pattern, as if it had lain upon the sea floor for years and accumulated all manner of shells and barnacles. With another bow, Lord Taran gave it to Wendell.
"Thank you," Wendell said. He gazed into the mirror, then turned towards the crowd, absently tapping the glass against his opposite palm. The motion scattered diamonds of reflected light across the courtyard.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales