# Quote — Keith Roberts, Pavane

> She said faintly, “Are you...real?”
>
> Amusement showed in his face. “Real?” he said. “Define reality and I can answer you.” He waved a hand. “Look into solid earth, into rock, and see the galaxies of all Creation. What you call reality melts; there is a whirling, a spinning of forces, a dance of motes and atoms. Some of them we call planets, one of them is Earth. Nothingness within nothingness enclosing nothing, that is reality. Tell me what you want, and I can answer.”

- Author: [Keith Roberts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts.md)
- Book: [Pavane](https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts/pavane.md)
- Page: 170
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Keith_Roberts#Pavane_(1968)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts/pavane/she-said-faintly

## More from this book

> She stopped dead; and the look in her eyes showed plainly she’d just received the import of a crude lesson in economics.

p. 224 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts/pavane/she-stopped-dead.md)

> A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth.

p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts/pavane/a-death-was.md)

> The years had a way of piling themselves one atop the next, unnoticed and uncounted; that was how young men turned into old ones.

p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-roberts/pavane/the-years-had.md)