Quotes About Perspective

finding another woman can bring an exceptional clarity of mind to a man all of a sudden.

My parents' marriage, to my unforgiving nineteen-year-old eye, was a car crash of cliché. Though I would have to admit, as the one making the judgement, that a 'car crash of of cliché' is itself a cliché.

Chi poteva sapere come l'avrebbe pensata, il futuro? Ci aspettiamo troppo dal domani, sperando che sappia contrastare l'oggi.

And perhaps I I didn't even understand the young when I was young. That could be true too.

Professional critics] act as if Flaubert, or Milton, or Wordsworth were some tedious old aunt in a rocking chair, who smelt of stale powder, was only interested in the past, and hadn't said anything new for years. Of course, it's her house, and everybody is living in it rent free, but even so, surely it is, well, you know… time?

When we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

I hope you never get there yourself—but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. And one of the few side benefits of that is you know you're not going to go to hell for filling in the wrong answers in the crossword. Because you've been to hell and back already and you know all too well what it's like.

I survived. "He survived to tell the tale"—that's what people say, don't they? History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.

The past, as we have been told so many times, is a foreign country where things are done differently.

But then, as she told herself, who would learn better than she that hindsight is a prism that alters everything?

Nobody ever told you to expect any more than you were given. There are many men who would think it a fine thing to be a cleric living in a large rectory, without having to do a stroke of work from January to December.

I've either been in love a dozen times or never. I can't tell.

The box we stored God i kept getting smaller...until only a speck of god still exists, maybe only an atom. Maybe an atom is all we need.

The storyteller is the survivor, after all.

Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up? Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn't notice. Julie Andrews Edwards

Let's refer to it as Saturday, rather than the day of my hanging, shall we?

One of heartbreak's chief qualities seemed to be its ability to distort time and distances.

they were coming into focus to each other. As though each of them was a sun, burning away each other's obscuring mists.

Should I apologize for my species for trotting out the same compliment again and again? Isn't it better than having none at all? When you hear the same one again and again, it's difficult not to come to the conclusion that it's the only thing of note about one's person.

Well? Well, what? Damn it, Nathan, tell me what you think. About what? Lady Sara, Colin persisted. What do you think of her? The truth, Colin? His friend gave a quick nod. Nathan's smile was slow, easy. She'll fit through the window.

It's a shame you know, he called over his shoulder. What's a shame? Duncan asked. That I didn't capture her first. Duncan smiled. Nay, Edmond, it was a blessing. God's truth, I would have taken her from you.

I realize you don't understand you shouldn't argue with me, and so I'll explain it to you. Don't argue with me.

Do you honestly believe I would have instructed the man to pay attention to what I was saying if I'd known all the while that he is the King of Scotland?

How astounding, Andras thought, that a ship that size could shrink to the size of a house, and then to the size of a car; the size of a desk, a book, a shoe, a walnut, a grain of rice, a grain of sand. How astounding that the largest thing he'd ever seen was still no match for the diminishing effect of distance. It made him aware of his own smallness in the world, his insignificance in the face of what might come, and for a moment his chest felt light with panic.