Quotes About Perspective

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.

Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around us in awareness.

There are two kinds of light -- the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.

I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.

Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.

and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality.

Las cosas nunca son lo que parecen..., todo bueno o todo malo. Sería mucho más fácil si lo fueran.

Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, maybe I see a pattern because it's there.

it was sort of like the first time I got drunk, or slept with a girl; not quite what one expected, really, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way

What if you had never seen the sea before? What if the only thing you'd ever seen was a child's picture - blue crayon, choppy waves? Would you know the real sea if you only knew the picture? Would you be able to recognize the real thing even if you saw it?

Percebi que me imaginara, durante anos, em outro local mas que, na realidade, permaneci lá o tempo inteiro

Well, a change of scenery may be good for you, said Hobie when I went down to see him before I left. Even if the scene isn't what you'd choose.

Ninguém nunca, jamais, vai conseguir me convencer de que a vida é uma coisa incrível e gratificante. Porque, esta é a verdade: a vida é catástrofe.

And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky...

Because I don't care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here's the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence—of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do—is catastrophe.

Beauty alters the grain of reality.

I've come to believe that there's no truth beyond

one prisoner looking at another

When you're worried about something," said Henry abruptly, "have you ever tried thinking in a different language?

It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment then for what is was; I suppose we never do.

when you feel homesick, he said, just look up. because the moon is the same wherever you go

Eso era el cuerpo: falible, sujeto a achaques. Enfermedad, dolor. ¿Por qué la gente se acaloraba tanto sobre ello?

No person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us.