Quotes About Understanding

Juan gave Bones the most admiring look he'd bestowed on him yet. You talked her into going without panties all these years? Madre de Dios, now that's impressive. I could learn a great deal from you, amigo.

Everyone will tell you how rigid I am, but a teacher has to be flexible. You can't cut the student to your cloth you have to cut yourself to theirs.

So Lydia is worried about all these things, and yet, she has a new understanding about the futility of worry. The worst will either happen or not happen, and there's no worry that will make a difference in either direction. Don't think.

From the Author's Note: In my conversations with Mexican people, I seldom heard the word American used to describe a citizen of this country – instead they use a word we don't even have in English estadounidense, United States-ian.

Luca even hears Abuela lightly scolding them all, not because she actually disapproves, Luca realizes, but because a casual reprimand is Abuela's way of participating, and that is the thing, really,

Luca likes to listen to the foreign sounds, the peaks and rolls of the words he doesn't understand. He likes the way voices sound the same in every language, the way, if you train your ear to listen just outside the words, to only the shifting inflections, you can attach your own meaning to the sounds.

His grief is not the same as hers.

It was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him; he didn't press her on personal matters, he was seldom jealous, and he had no interest in annexing or directing her friendships with other men.

makes a face that's like the opposite of rolling his eyes, where his features get really still, and he looks away from Lorenzo with his eyelids half-closed, and he just waits for the words to go away.

If there's one good thing about terror, Lydia now understands, it's that it's more immediate than grief.

If you're a person who has the capacity to be a bridge, why not be a bridge?

She doesn't ask if he's okay, because from now on that question will carry a weight of painful absurdity.

She has a new understanding about the futility of worry. The worst will either happen or not happen, and there's no worry that will make a difference in either direction. Don't think.

she has a new understanding about the futility of worry. The worst will either happen or not happen, and there's no worry that will make a difference in either direction.

beauty begets empathy

So Lydia is worried about all these things, and yet, she has a new understanding about the futility of worry. The worst will either happen or not happen, and there's no worry that will make a difference in either direction.

They perceive each other, the unspoken trauma they've both endured, their reasons for being here. It's as subtle and significant as a heartbeat.

If there's one good thing about terror, Lydia now understands, it's that it's more immediate than grief. She knows that she will soon have to contend with what's happened, but for now, the possibility of what might happen still serves to anesthetize her from the worst of the anguish.

At sixteen, the adolescent knows about suffering because he himself has suffered, but he barely knows that other beings also suffer.

Do not judge and you will never be mistaken.

When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.

Once we know the number one, we believe that we know the number two, because one plus one equals two. We forget that first we must know the meaning of plus.

Truth is in all things, even partly, in error.

I hope the amazed reader will be patient for a while—in order simply to read.