Quotes About Clarity

One writes not to be read but to breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's mistakes--in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer--you go to it in sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.

I have this theory that actually, after an absence you discover in that first glimpse what you really think and feel about another person. You know things you couldn't know before.

The more you talk about It and the more you think about It, the further from It you go; stop talking, stop thinking and there is nothing you will not understand.

Not that it was beautiful, but that I found some order there.

Just once I knew what life was for.

A good mixture of nothing and everything is eating up my head alive.

Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.

DON'T ASK THE QUESTIONS IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE ANSWERS.

She refused to let common sense cloud her judgment.

There is a way the truth hits you, both hard and gentle at the same time. It punches you in the stomach as it puts its loving arm around your shoulder. Yes, I am terrible to behold, the truth says. But you suspected it all along, didn't you? And isn't better, now that you know? Now, at least, it all makes sense.

Jack hesitated still, and Hazel wanted to say something comforting, give him some bright plastic flowers of words, but Jack would see them for what they were. Jack knew how to see things.

They said words they did not mean, and their conversations seemed to follow all kinds of rules—rules that no one has ever explained to Oscar.

Everything felt better when you knew what time it was. Sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour. There was always order, if you knew where to look.

Oscar grabbed on to the words and held them.

Fürchterliche Ungewissheit? Fürchterlich nur so lange, als wir ihr nicht ins Auge zu blicken vermögen.

To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes—such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in man.

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.

People didn't even agree on what the terms always and never meant! If you're like most people, you were pretty surprised by these results. Most of us aren't aware of the wide range of what these words mean to different people. We assume that when we use a term, other people use it in the same way we do and mean the same thing we do.

Figure out the hard thing first. Try to solve that as quickly as possible. Beware of false progress.

What is hopefully (crystal ball) clear by now is that your beliefs create a bottleneck to good decision-making. It doesn't matter how good the quality of your decision process is if the input into that process is junk. That input is your beliefs, and there is a lot of junk in there.

Even though the importance of making quality decisions seems obvious, it's surprising how few people can actually articulate what a good decision process looks like.

The outside view disciplines the distortions that live in the inside view. That's why it's important to start with the outside view and anchor there, considering things like what's true of the world in general or the way someone else would view your situation.

Seek out the outside view with an open mind. You'll be more likely to find out about the KICK ME sign on your back, the spinach in your teeth, and all the things you're having trouble seeing from your perspective. That will help you clear out the junk, which will improve your decisions.

There is no such thing as a lesser truth.