Quotes About Misunderstanding

Holmberg tried to help them, but he never fully grasped that the people he saw as remnants from the Paleolithic Age were actually the persecuted survivors of a recently shattered culture. It was as if he had come across refugees from a Nazi concentration camp, and concluded that they belonged to a culture that had always been barefoot and starving.

I wish I could explain things better, to make you understand. But I can't. It's just too hard to find the right word.

the nausea due to misunderstanding a language, the fear due to unfamiliarity with a style, the conflict of generations, are all mild examples of sign shock.

Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the April Fool.

Olga noticed Mirium looking at her blankly. 'Don't you pray?' she asked. 'Pray?' Mirium shook her head. 'I don't understand - ' 'Prayers! Oh, yes, I forgot. Didn't dear Roland say that on the other side everybody is pagan? You all worship some dead god on a stick, impaled or something disgusting, and pray in English,' she said with relish.

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or overwork?

Lockhart twitches. "I do not think Stockholm syndrome means quite what you think it means." "What, the tendency of people—usually women—in unfamiliar societies to enculturate rapidly?" Lockhart inclines his head. "Point.

Mulle tundub, et astronoomide seas on mingi seltskond suisa solvunud, et need, kes selle ketta ehitasid ja meid siia tõid, ei maandunud Valge Maja ette murule ega tutvustanud ennast.

But I couldn't hear what he was saying.

Bert confused a burst of new spending caused by growth in the money supply with an increase in demand for his products.

I thought you were a folk singer.' 'No, I just need a haircut. In point of fact, I can't tell one note from another.' 'That needn't prevent you from being a folk singer.

from Diana to Deborah, 8 May 1998) Talking of language difficulty Tony Lambton says Selwyn Lloyd introduced him to Khrushchev saying 'He's the best shot in England,' and the translator said 'Lord Lambton is to be shot tomorrow.' Khrushchev thought it quite normal but patted him on the shoulder kindly.

There's nothing worse than ruining a perfectly good moment by thinking someone else will find humor in something they absolutely do not.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that a Biafran plane landed in another African country, and the pilot and all of the crew came out, and there was not a white man among them. The people of this other country—which is a stooge of France—couldn't comprehend a plane being landed without any white people. They said, "Where is the pilot? Where are the white people?" They arrested the crew, presuming there had been a rebellion in the air!

Did not our elders tell us that as soon as we shake hands with a leper he will want an embrace?

HARSH WORDS Whad'ya say that for? You want me to go deaf?

She knew that most men desired her because she was attractive and she was smart, but also because she was a drunk and she was easy. This one? She hoped for his sake he wasn't as different as he seemed, because she always disappointed those men quickly or broke their hearts over time.

Cassandra, Troy-born daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, knew the future, and no one believed her. At least most of the time that was what occurred. Apollo gave her the great gift of prophecy because he was confident that she was going to sleep with him; when, in the end, she refused, the god spat in her mouth, leaving behind the curse that no one would ever believe a word that she said. And so she lived with frustration and dread.

As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of war our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them

Women think the people that I play are smoldering and dangerous. I look in the mirror, and I go, 'I don't get it.'

It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.

People kind of have a misconception, because when someone calls me Theo and I correct them, say, 'No, my name is Malcolm,' they think I have an attitude about it and I don't want to be associated with the show.

My reality is the misconceptions about me.

I think one of the major misconceptions about me is that I live my life the way people think I lead my life, with hot and cold drinks running everywhere and a party all the time. They think of my life in terms of certain excesses that don't really exist. Things are actually fairly simple.