At the mercy of reality

Everything that one has created achieves reality. And soon the day dawns when one finds oneself at the mercy of the reality that one has created; and mourns the days when one's life was almost void of reality, almost a nullity; idle, inoffensive fancies spun round a knot in a roof. His eye had already, this first night, become a mourning eye.

Halldór Laxness, Independent People (Harvill Press, 2001) p. 405