Quotes About Perspective

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you.

I wish I could jump like that," he thought. "Some can and some can't. That's how it is.

Well, even if I'm in the moon, I needn't be face downwards all the time," so he got cautiously up and looked about him.

Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude—for every single moment of my stupid, little life.

I find it curious that I never heard any astronaut say that he wanted to go to the Moon so he would be able to look back and see the Earth. We all wanted to see what the Moon looked like close up. Yet, for most of us, the most memorable sight was not of the Moon but of our beautiful blue and white home, moving majestically around the sun, all alone and infinite black space.

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.

That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.

He is interested in the feelings of the squash ball, and of the champagne bottle that launches the ship. In a football match his sympathy is not with either of the teams but with the ball, or, in a match ending nil-nil, with the hunger of the goalmouth.

One of the good things about Larkin is that he still has you firmly by the hand as you cross the finishing-line, whereas reading Auden is like doing a parachute-drop: for a while the view is wonderful, but then you end up on your back in the middle of a ploughed field and in the wrong county.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already. You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated. A book, as it were, closes the book.

When we are young, we think life will be like a supo: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths-bits and pieces, odds and ends-people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps.

Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation.

To make the world a better place, see the world as a better place.

Only the ego resists egos. The spirit may notice egos, but sees beyond them and does not engage with them.

Your thoughts do not create reality, but they do create your experience.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms.