Quotes About Perspective

Entitlement, I have told them, is a matter of feeling like we rather than they.

Asking "what if" and answering that question is the bedrock of what the novel can achieve. The story becomes something more than one person's perspective—it reaches as far as the novelist can imagine.

I never expect anything,' said Marthe. 'It provides a level, low-pitched existence with no disappointments.' 'I'm all for a level, low-pitched existence,' said Philippa. 'And when you see your way back to one, for heaven's sake don't forget to tell me.' At which Marthe, surprisingly, laughed aloud.

Intentions, yours or anyone else's, don't matter; they never matter and never excuse.

It doesn't do my self-esteem much good though, does it?' 'Your self-esteem has had a lifetime of steady attention,' said Philippa abstractedly.

You have not yet discovered what happens to Russians at sea.' 'The same thing, I suppose, that happens to Englishmen,' Chancellor said. 'Scots, I take it, are immune.' 'To sarcasm, yes,' Lymond said.

Marthe said suddenly, 'How many souls on this earth call you Francis? Three? Or perhaps four?' For a moment he looked at her unsmiling; and for a moment she wished, angrily that she could recall the question. Then quite suddenly he smiled, and held out his hand. 'Five,' he said. 'Surely? Since last night.

The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment.

You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled.

Then you've had a good day of it, I suppose. Then you suppose wrong, said Lymond shortly. I've had a damned carking afternoon. A Moslem would blame my Ifrit, a Buddhist explain the papingo was really my own great-grandmother, and a Christian, no doubt, call it the vengeance of the Lord. As a plain, inoffensive heathen, I call it bloody annoying.

Are you implying,' said Philippa coldly, 'that I enjoyed being brought up surrounded by eunuchs?' 'No,' said Lymond. 'But I expect you enjoyed it more than the eunuchs did.

I have been taught to face reality: an excellent thing.

Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him.

We?' said Chancellor. 'I am lavishly paid,' Danny said, 'to think in the first person plural.

If he is mad, I can agree with him.' 'He isn't mad,' said Jerott.

You know we believe Philippa.' 'Perhaps I envy her,' Lymond said. 'No one believes me.

Are you mourning? Seneca says a wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can. You should be pleased. At last Francis has managed to follow his own misguided path without the rest of us consuming time and energy on setting him right.

Sybilla said, 'If there are swords, then I suppose you must wear yours. But it is you we need.' 'We?' he said. 'Five hundred thousand people,' said Sybilla. 'You have a high opinion of my swordsmanship,' Lymond said.

I find your family, my dear Marthe, much more disturbing than mine.

Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles.

It's time you thought less of your emotional feather bed and more of other people's.

Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius, or why worry about tomorrow, when your funeral is today. Goodbye.

He said, 'Then you don't know, Philippa, what I am.' 'I know what you think you are,' Philippa said.

How old do you think he is?' said Sybilla placidly. 'To tell you the truth, I don't want him hanging about my petticoats for the rest of my life. He is, you must admit, a little disruptive in the home.