Quotes About Perspective

People change when they get older. They get more . . . cautious. They've been hit harder and more often. It doesn't mean they're stupid or timid—Mom

History is not tied to slogans and ideals and reform movements. It is to rid ourselves of notions of doctrines and movements and look at the incidents of the past as they actually happened. And this can't happen unless we allow our minds to be cleared of the illusions created by the present.

I really know the implications, and you don't. We're not talking about a better breed of catapults or . . . or D&D hit levels.

Is maith an scáthán súil charad!" Juniper replied ruefully. "A friend's eye is a good mirror!

It is better to be blind than to see things from only one point of view.

Lucy: I don't understand men. Nettie: What is there to understand? If you feed 'em regular-like and give 'em a bit of 'sugar' now and then, they're easy enough. And if they don't behave, you just toss 'em out on their arses. That's what I always say.

In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

From the gods' perspective all ways are the same and all roads will be travelled in the end. It's only a matter of time.

There's always another way. But we can only see as we are. And no power on earth, nor above or below it, not even yours, Dr Freud, can deflect the human will when it has its sights set on one direction.

Women are the gossips, the seers, the story-tellers. One of these days I'll tell him: pay attention, Tom dear, because it's women who are the keepers of secrets.

The word 'translation' comes, etymologically, from the Latin for 'bearing across'. Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.

My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming that in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal.' You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again.

Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.

My horizon's have shrunk and I have only endings to write.

everything is relative, one man's absolute belief is another man's fairy tale;

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one.

I know that when people pull apart, they usually employ misunderstanding as a weapon, deliberately getting hold of the stick's wrong end, impaling themselves on its point in order to prove the perfidy of the other.

Life is lived forward but is judged in reverse.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

Straight answers were beyond the powers of Rashid Khalifa, who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available.

The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.

human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions