Quotes About Understanding

With all our gifts, all the love we have for one another, what went wrong? That's what I want to know. That one missing piece." "Life, Mom

My mother reads the Bible every morning," Dianne said. "She's told me a million times: 'Man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.' From Samuel.

Si seulement il avait un peu de temps. [...] Le temps aussi de bien comprendre le mot amour. Un mot beaucoup trop gros pour lui. Tellement gros qu'il ne sait pas par quel bout le prendre.

I was willing to take being second best if it meant I could still . . . you know. Be with him.

Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wished them to be...

Language supplies us with ways to express ever subtler levels of meaning, but does that imply language gives meaning, or robs us of it when we are at a loss to name things?

While our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark. . . Sometimes it is as difficult to know what the past holds as it is to know the future, and just as an answer to a riddle seems so obvious once it is revealed, it seems curious to me now that I passed through all those early moments with no idea of their weight.

When you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding.

Miss Barry was a kindred spirit after all, Anne confided to Marilla, You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. . . Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

You're not eating anything, said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair? I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say, responded Marilla. Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the depths of despair? No, I didn't. Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very uncomfortable a feeling indeed.

Hate is only love that has missed its way.

I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips, thought Valancy.

When a man don't know his own mind, Miss Shirley, ma'am, how's a poor woman going to be sure of it?

E la gente ride di me perché uso parole grosse. Ma se si hanno in testa idee grosse, bisogna usare parole grosse per esprimerle, non trova?

FEELING is so different from KNOWING. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul.

Un uomo, quando corteggia una ragazza, deve avere le stesse idee religiose di sua madre e quelle politiche di suo padre.

For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All spirit and fire and dew, as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate.

You don't know love when you see it. You've tricked something out with your imagination that you think love, and you expect the real thing to look like that. There, that's the first sensible thing I've ever said in my life. I wonder how I managed it?

The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don't understand one another, she explained. That is always what is wrong when people don't like each other. I didn't like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as soon as I came to understand her I learned to.

And she knew, just as simply and just as surely that she loved him— had always loved him, with a love that lay at the very foundation of he being.

Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child

And when people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite—always

That's one of the things we learn as we grow older — how to forgive.

We are writing for children...not idiots.