Quotes About Perspective

Well-being and need are purely relative concepts. There is no such thing as poverty in itself, suffering in itself, unhappiness in itself. All is relative.

I wonder about this emptiness," he said. "It would seem not to have any existence independent of our perception of it. An interesting substance. One could think it pleasant or unpleasant, strong or weak, and that would in fact be its reality.

My granddaughter asked me how far away the Sun is. That question I couldn't answer with apples and oranges. But if you traveled to the Sun on a high-speed train, say at two hundred miles per hour, it would take about fifty years. She nodded. To get to the nearest star beyond the Sun on the same train would take about fifteen million years.

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?

A small number of residents in each city have stopped caring whether they age a few seconds faster than their neighbors. These adventuresome souls come down to the lower world for days at a time, lounge under the trees that grow in the valleys, swim leisurely in the lakes that lie at warmer altitudes, roll on level ground. They hardly look at their watches and cannot tell you if it is Monday or Thursday. When the others rush by them and scoff, they just smile.

If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.

Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.

I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.

Everybody has their story to tell.

It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?

I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.

Please don't worry. It's a psychological complaint, common amongst ex-librarians. You see, she thinks she's a coffee table edition...

Roses are red Violets are blue Everything's possible Nothing is true.

Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.

LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I'm recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one – but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that were just as valid. That had a profound effect on me.

Adrian Veidt: I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end. Dr. Manhattan: 'In the end'? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

You see, there's the way things seemed and then there's the way things were and one is so often the total reverse of the other.

I have so very much. I have so very little.

Affected most, they understand the least...

I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! ~ JOKER

As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.

This is an IMAGINARY STORY...aren't they all?

Places don't stay where you left them. You go back there, anywhere, and even if it looks exactly how it did before, it's somewhere else.