Quotes About Understanding

She'd been only four, much too little to understand what was happening, when her mother walked out. She hardly remembered Michelle. Yet the loss was still with her, not really a pain, more like an emptiness, as if something that ought to be inside of her were missing. She worried that more losses would leave other empty spaces in her, until she would be as hollow as a shell from which the egg had been drained through a pinhole.

Even bad guys," Roy said patiently, "deserve compassion. This man has suffered. You can see that. I need to get my hands on him, yes, and be sure that society's safe from him—but he still deserves to be treated with compassion, with as much mercy as possible.

Nevertheless, he didn't take offense at being an object of suspicion, because such scrutiny was a wise protocol. Ganesh Patel rarely took offense at anything; to do so was a waste of emotional energy. Nor did he grow impatient about the delay, for impatience was a characteristic of those who didn't understand that time flowed to a purpose that neither impatience nor haste could change for the better, though often for the worse.

But no lie, regardless of how well intended, could deceive in telepathic communication

The directness of his stare suggests her every word matters to him, and she feels that she has his sincere sympathy rather than unwanted pity.

should know. Though

Even in chaos, there is order, purpose, and strange meaning that invites—but often thwarts—our investigation and our understanding.

He knew what he didn't know. Dorian Purcell, on the other hand, seemed not to know what he didn't know.

Our illusion is that we travel through life on a calculated and straight trajectory, from the past through present into future, on a journey to understanding, truth, reward. But by Brownian movement we progress, sent angling off this way and that by the impact of everyone we meet and every event that we cannot foresee.

Sometimes truth was elusive...

Nor did he grow impatient about the delay, for impatience was a characteristic of those who didn't understand that time flowed to a purpose that neither impatience nor haste could change for the better, though often for the worse.

Lots of people are unable to see all kinds of truths right in front of their eyes. You can't worry about them for a minute. They're hopeless.

Intuition alone determined for her what the patterns meant and what they suggested she should do. To her way of thinking, intuition was a word for perceptions that were received on a level far below the subconscious. Intuition was seeing with the soul.

Sometimes I thought I couldn't wait, but then I always could. Because she gave me so much else and everything she gave me was more than a thousand other girls could ever give. All she wanted was love with respect, respect was so important to her, and I could give her that. I don't know what she saw in me, you know? But I could give her that much.

He makes eye contact with Katie for a moment, and then rests his chin

You could make yourself a little crazy, even certifiable, if you insisted that life always proceed according to some this-because-that system of logic. Occasionally you had to accept the inexplicable.

Although Woody had studied and learned a great deal, he was well aware that there were vast

that she would have steadied him, that with her he would have found greater intellectual and emotional depths in himself than he would ever discover alone.

Life is full of mysteries, isn't it? And maybe we don't always need to know the answers to them. Each thing we don't understand is a wall, and we spend our lives throwing ourselves against those walls, with little to show for it in the end. Maybe sometimes it's just best to accept the limitations of our understanding, accept that some things will be forever beyond our knowledge." He realized that he was

I admit that I don't understand art that isn't in the least representational. But I feel no need to understand it.

impatience was a characteristic of those who didn't understand that time flowed to a purpose that neither impatience nor haste could change for the better, though often for the worse.

even as foolish as Walsh seems, she is moved by a vulnerability that underlies his pomposity.

As he cried out in tremulous and wordless horror, she put her arms around him, her secret friend, and held him tight. Although he was older than her, she heard herself saying, "Sweet boy, dear boy, my child, my friend, I'll never abandon you.

I understand why the world is shapen as it is, that we should have free will and be more than ants, that we must know evil if we're also to know good.