Quotes About Misinterpretation

And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn't go around with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they had understood correctly.

I say one thing, you write another, and those who read you understand still something else!

If you knew Norman Mailer and me and were asked to guess which of us cared more about sex, you would, of course, pick Norman Mailer. How wrong you would be.

My mind and gut are never simpatico: Every time I think somebody likes me, she doesn't; every time I think somebody doesn't like me, she does. This has never changed and I'm certain it never will.

It sounds trite, but only because words make everything true sound trite. Because words always screw up whatever you're trying to say.

Which is why God has erected such a firewall between the living and the dead: because the predead always distort whatever the postalive tell them. Jesus or Mohammad or Siddharta, whenever any dead person has come back to offer some banal bit of advice, the living recipient misinterprets every word of it.

This really happens. It sounds trite, but only because words make everything true sound trite. Because words always screw up what you're trying to say.

Ich hatte die ganze Zeit gedacht, die beiden ziehen über meinen Großvater her, aber dann wurde mir klar, die meinten mich. Das heißt, natürlich meinten sie irgendeinen verrückten Killer, aber das war immer noch ich, die ich da in Häschenpantoffeln und Pelzmantel saß.

Of all people, only Mr. King came close to exposing the true magic of black people," Arabella explained. "For many years we debated killing him for our own protection." Miss Josephine listened in amazement. "Blacks killed Martin Luther King Jr.?" Arabella scowled. "Not Doctor King . . . ," she exclaimed. "We hired a man to kill Stephen King. Unfortunately the assassin was inept, and the intended hit-and-run was a failure.

No, no, I know, it's just—you know, I thought . . ." "Because I have Syrian heritage I hate the Jews?" "When you put it like that, I'm pretty sure I'm a dumb-ass.

An epiphany was a useful revelation about the world around you; an apophany was a revelation, too, but wrong in that you had incorrectly discerned a pattern where none had existed, taking enlightenment from an untrue thing.

Apophenia, they called it. An epiphany was a useful revelation about the world around you; an apophany was a revelation, too, but wrong in that you had incorrectly discerned a pattern where none had existed, taking enlightenment from an untrue thing. It was the human way—seeing truth in the storm of darkness and noise. Faces in clouds, ghosts on video, Jesus on a piece of damn toast.

An epiphany was a useful revelation about the world around you; an apophany was a revelation, too, but wrong in that you had incorrectly discerned a pattern where none had existed, taking enlightenment from an untrue thing. It was the human way—seeing truth in the storm of darkness and noise. Faces in clouds, ghosts on video, Jesus on a piece of damn toast.

Kate felt very offended. 'I am not an elf,' she insisted. 'I'm an Englishwoman!

A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.

No, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low.

She had been trapped into saying something she did not mean.

but how speak to a man who does not see you? who sees ogres, satyrs, perhaps the depths of the sea instead?

Queer, how I misinterpreted the designations of doom.

Some of them are detached observers, like glass surfaces and still pools; others, such as coats in store windows, are prejudiced witnesses, lynchers at heart; others, again (running, water, storms), are hysterical to the point of insanity, have a distorted opinion of him, and grotesquely misinterpret his actions.

I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.

This is'nt like , vampire gay, is it? ~Kynan

What is up with you?" she snapped. "I have been flirting my ass off, and you act like I'm trying to sell you stewed maggots." "Hey," he said with a wave of his hand. "Don't knock stewed maggots. With enough spices and tomatoes––

You were different after your father died. She was wrong, of course. It was true that he'd changed toward her, but she had misinterpreted the cause. It wasn't his father's death and his ascension to the title the year before that caused him to shut her out the summer she came home and treat her as a servant rather than a friend. It was the fact that being friends with her had ceased to be enough, and anything more had never been possible.