Quotes About Perspective

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.

The thing I keep learning about endings is that they aren't a long time coming, and that they don't sneak up on you either, because endings just don't happen.

My mother says that some books are good no matter when you read them, and some are good at a particular moment; they come into your life at just the right time.

The reading and writing of fiction both requires and instills empathy—the insertion of oneself into the life of another.

To me, a recently read novel was like a miniature planet: only a few hours earlier I had been breathing its air and living contentedly among its people - and now I was expected to pronounce a judgement about its worth?

Believing in books is a lot like believing in God.

We naturally look for evidence that confirms our beliefs. We then experience what we believe, even when there is evidence to suggest otherwise.

We cannot directly choose our emotions and switch them on but we can use the things we can control to change how we feel.

There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own.

But there are two sides to every fight. It starts from something small, a chance remark, a gesture made lightly. It grows from there. Both sides can be unjust. Both can be cruel.

A tale can start in many ways. Thus, it is many tales, and at the same time each of these is but one way of telling the same story.

Even when I was young and content and thought life would bring good things for me and mine, I didn't believe in miracles.

Her kind will tell you there is no black and white, only shadows. That any way can be wrong or right, that good and evil are two sides of the same coin. Believe her if you will. Perhaps she tells the truth

When you felt sad or angry or hopeless, a story could help. A story could lead you into a different world for a while.

There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light, save in your own vision. All changes in the blink of an eyelid; yet all remains the same.

di lahat ng payo makakabuti para sa 'tin dahil di man lahat ng naranasan ng iba..ay kagaya ng eksaktong nararanasan ng bawat isa.

Children retain a great deal, and when they grow up they start going over things and rejudging them from a grownup's point of view. This must have been this way, and that was that way, they say. That's why you have to be careful with children—some day they grow up.

Wir sind der Meinung, Schönheit sei nicht in den Objekten selber zu suchen, sondern im Helldunkel, im Schattenspiel, das sich zwischen Objekten entfaltet.

Our earth is round, and, among other things, that means that you and I can hold completely different points of view and both be right. The difference of our positions will show stars in your window I cannot even imagine. Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness. Still we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience. Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter.

One piece of information that made an impression on her was that individual Chinese lives mattered to the Westerners.

mosquito-netted open windows was an enormous privilege. 'You must not think you are superior to them,' he would say. 'You are just

It is hard for one who has not had a similar experience to imagine the terror that still gripped Taeko and Mrs. Tamaki and Hiroshi, so intense a terror that afterwards it seemed almost funny.

If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge.

Quoting Scripture texts is different than shaping a worldview around them.