Quotes About Perspective

We tend to think things are new because we just discovered them.

I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.

We do not know what things look like, as you say, the beast said. We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing.

We cannot always cry at the right time and who is to say which time is right?

It does not matter that we cannot fathom this mystery. The only real problem comes when we think that we have.

If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and that there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless.

One of the hardest lessons I have to learn is how not to be judgmental about people who are judgmental. When I see how wrong somebody is—how shallow it is to look at the Resurrection as a mere, explainable fact—when I see only the mistakenness of others, then I am blinded to their being children of God, who are just as valued and treasured as are those who more nearly agree with me.

Oh, why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there are so many delightful ones to see?" Again Mrs Which's voice reverberated through the cave. "Therre willl nno llonggerr bee sso many y pplleasanntt thinggss tto llookk att iff rressponssible ppeoplle ddo nnott ddo ssomethingg abboutt thee unnppleassanntt oness.

When I start a new seminar I tell my students that I will undoubtedly contradict myself, and that I will mean both things.

We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don't want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.

All of life is a story

We want them to see their home planet, Mrs. Whatsit said. The Medium lost the delighted smile she had worn till then. Oh, why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there are so many delightful ones to see? Again Mrs. Which's voice reverberated through the cave. There will no longer be so many pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not do something about the unpleasant ones.

And it came to me as I stood on the desert sand, looking at the Great Pyramid, that what any civilization says about God tells us more about that civilization than it does about God.

We do not know what things look like, as you say," the beast said. "We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing.

Do you know how lucky you are?" She smiled rather wryly. "Not most of the time.

But I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the reader ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.

A truly great work of art breaks beyond the bounds of the period and culture in which it is created, so final judgement on a current book has to be deferred until it can be seen outside this present moment.

And we mustn't lose our sense of humor, Mrs. Which said. The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.

I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.

Look at my glasses. I can't even see that there are any stars in the sky without them, but it's not the glasses that are doing the seeing, it's me, Madeleine. I don't think Father's eyes are seeing now, but he is. And maybe his brain isn't thinking, but a brain's just something to think through, the way my glasses are something to see through.

We're not peculiar. Oh, yes, you are. Don't you realize that in my world my parents are peculiar because they'd never been divorced? Basically because it would have been too much trouble. But you live in a world where not only are your parents not divorced, they appear to love each other

He said, "There's a sermon of John Donne's I have often had cause to remember during my lifetime. He says, Other men's crosses are not my crosses. We all have our own cross to carry, and one is all most of us are able to bear. How much do you owe him, Vicky?

There's something a little humiliating about having to accept that, at fifty-one, one is naïve. I am. I would, quite often, like to be grownup, wise, and sophisticated. But these gifts are not mine.