Quotes About Understanding

Then I remembered that I had yet to learn, if I ever was to learn, how strongly people in love could feel. In any event, I was the last person in the world to judge anyone as foolishly impulsive, for this was my own greatest fault.

At many levels, contempt has become a defining characteristic of American politics. It makes us unwilling to listen to what others say—unwilling, in some cases, even to allow them to speak. This stops the learning process cold and creates a ready-made audience for demagogues who know how to bring diverse groups of the aggrieved together in righteous opposition to everyone else.

believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not at first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.

Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.

I do not know everything; still many things I understand.

Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.

Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.

If some people say what is in their hearts and other people say what glides easily off the tongue, how can we talk to one another?

In the end, I believe these pages and the Book of Records return to the persistence of this desire: to know the times in which we are alive. To keep the record that must be kept and also, finally, to let it go.

I felt she saw into me, past every facade and flourish, and that the more she knew me, the more she loved me. I was too young, then, to know how lasting this kind of love is, how rarely it comes in one's life, how difficult it is to accept oneself, let alone another.

She told me I possessed what every great mathematician required, an excellent memory and a sense of poetry. I felt she saw into me, past every façade and flourish, and that the more she knew me, the more she loved me. I was too young, then, to know how lasting this kind of love is, how rarely it comes into one's life, how difficult it is to accept oneself, let alone another. I carried this security--Ai-ming's love, the love of an older sister--out of my childhood and into my adult life.

She did not know how or why, but now that she understood, now that she had come to a decision, the old fears had drained away.

He kisses her, and she knows, somehow, that he is asking for help, for an end to the sadness they are causing one another. Asking because, after all these years together, it is the only thing that might save them.

Sometimes, I think, you can look at a person and know they are full of words. Maybe the words are withheld due to pain or privacy, or maybe subterfuge.

She wanted to ask Kai if he loved Sparrow for who he was, or if it was his talent that was the true attraction. Didn't he understand that a gift like Sparrow's could not be bought or borrowed, it could not be stolen? Did Kai love the person, or did he love what Sparrow's music made him feel? Her own thoughts surprised and upset her?

you out here," Ridge said.

She held up her hands. "Stop, please. Allow me to hear one shocking sentence at a time.

So, I am Mr. Hampton again. It seems that I am only Julian when you forget yourself." "I...that is..." "We have known each other more than half our lives, Pen." She had not even noticed what she called him. "I do not want you to call me Mr. Hampton in private conversation ever again.

She barely heard. Barely answered. Finally she nodded. Fingertips

Hate hurts the hater more'n the hated.

We need to always deal with the child in front of us, not the child of our fantasies.