Quotes About Perspective

Some things can't be explained. They just are. And after a while they disappear, usually forever, or become interesting in another way. Literature's consolations are always temporary, while life is quick to begin again. It is better not even to look so hard, to leave off explaining. Nothing makes me more queasy than to spend time with people who don't know that and who can't forget, and for whom such knowledge isn't a cornerstone of life.

Best just to swallow back your tear, get accustomed to the minor sentimentals and shove off to whatever's next, not whatever was. Place means nothing.

My greatest human flaw and strength, not surprisingly, is that I can always imagine anything—a marriage, a conversation, a government—as being different from how it is, a trait that might make one a top-notch trial lawyer or novelist or realtor, but that also seems to produce a somewhat less than reliable and morally feasible human being.)

We don't know where any of this is going, do we?" she said, and she squeezed my hand tight again. "No," I said. And I knew that was not a bad thing at all, not for anyone, in any life. (Sweethearts, 1986)

There were no slaves in Natchez," she insisted haughtily. "We had field hands on our plantations, of course, but they were out of town or across the river. Here in Natchez, we had servants and we loved them. They were part of our families.

See it? Oh, I have no interest in seeing it. Seeing it might get in the way of my opinion.

Just as no building lacks an architecture, so no choice lacks a context.

So to put it simply, forcing people to choose is not always wise, and remaining neutral is not always possible.

the current situation being a toss-up as to what you want to believe. Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal. Hence you will find that often what you believe is what you want to believe, rather than being the result of careful thinking.

Time changes the places that knew us, and if we go back after years, still even then it is not the same spot; the gate swings differently, new thatch has been put on the old gables, the road has been widened, and the sward the driven sheep lingered on has gone. (Wild Flowers)

the tongues of men are not much leashed by concerns for accuracy or truth.

it's amazing how constant repetition can make even the most obvious truths irritating enough to disagree with.

No hagas juicios en tres dimensiones de lo que sólo puedes ver en la pantalla de un televisor.

That's your solution?' asked Wardani in a small, cold voice. 'Take drugs and watch it all slide out of view?' 'Do you have a better idea?' She turned away.

Look," the Ryker copy said, "I'm you. I know everything you know. What's the harm in talking about this stuff?" "If you know everything I know, what's the point of talking about it?" "Sometimes, it helps to externalize things. Even if you talk to someone else about it, you're usually talking to yourself. The other guy's just providing a sounding board. You talk it out.

Take what is offered, and that must sometimes be enough.

No son humanos, se relacionan con la humanidad del mismo modo que usted y yo nos relacionamos con el mundo de los insectos.

Make it personal.

Strange how you could become a man's god without noticing.

His way to wisdom was to hear out others who might or might not know any more than he did and then to sift it all through his own mental strainer.

The act of making art is both scary and healing. Art brings light to places that have remained dark. Art brings perspective. Making art, at any level, is an act of courage and an expression of faith.

I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. EMMA GOLDMAN

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic. SUSAN JEFFERS

We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that makes our lives. One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment. MERLE SHAIN