Both my happiness and my unhappiness I owe to the love of pleasure; of sex, travel, reading, conversation (hearing oneself talk), food, drink, cigars and lying in warm water.

Reality is what remains when these pleasures, together with hope for the future, regret for the past, vanity of the present, and all that composes the aroma of the self are pumped out of the air-bubble in which I shelter. (Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

"It is the actions of men, not their sentiments, that make history," said Norman Mailer.

Borges said our opinions are the most trivial things about us.

Nabokov said that "desire and decision [are] the two things that create a live world." Subtract the vital ("live") component, and you are left with pure perception. Not trivial--pure.

"The poet must build us his world," said Pound.

"The subject shrinks to an extentionless point," said Wittgenstein, "and there remains the reality coordinated with it."

It is the perceptions of men, not their opinions, that make a world.