Quotes About Perspective

Grown-ups have it over you in sheer day-to-day life experience. I'll be the first to admit that we don't know everything, but you at least have to be open to the idea that we might know a few things you don't.

What do you think of them?" "They're fine. Why ask them to be shorter?

But it's funny how you can take something that turns out to be fatal and classify it as not worth fixing.

I find it touching, almost enviable, that a person with so little feels she has all she needs.

I wondered if a white person could ever comment on the minority experience and get it right.

I think the world is just as terrible as beautiful and just as beautiful as terrible.

Most big life events are like that. You think they'll be emotionally one-sided, but when you actually get into them, it's always more complex." - Nathan

It might be an age thing. I think we get to a certain age where enough of people and their ugly trappings is enough.

I can't help wondering what the world would be like if our empathy muscle were a bit more developed.

whatever happens, I'll be okay. People get by in all kinds of situations. All over the world people are getting by on almost nothing. Losing things they think they can't live without. Or at least that they think they can't be happy without. But then it's pretty hard to be happy . . . you know . . . if it's dependent on some material possession not going away. I don't want to live like that.

When you're working with dementia patients, life is hard for both of you, but at least you don't have to keep coming up with new repartee. And I really don't say that to make light of the situation. I say it to find light in the situation, which I honestly think is a favor to all involved.

You can't point to this joy, Jordy. You'd have to point everywhere at once. And if you point everywhere at once, then you're not really pointing anywhere at all." I

There are all manner of things that scare us at some point in our lives, but then later we find out they really never meant to hurt us anyway.

Why is it that years can go by, and it feels like nothing moves, and then the whole world changes three or four times in a couple of weeks? I could never figure that out.

The reason people are unhappy is because they're so sure they know what they want. And then it makes them unhappy when they don't get it. I personally think people would be happier if they weren't so sure they knew the difference between a good thing and a bad thing.

Younger you are, the more you're not sure what's the right way to be in the world. The more you think you might be getting it wrong, the more sensitive you'll be about it. As you get older, like me, you stop caring so much what people think.

Really? So what did you come over here to say?" "I'm not sure, actually. I just knew I needed an idea. I thought you might have one. I didn't expect one to be dropped into my lap. But I guess life is like that sometimes." "Much of the time as you let it be,

Sometimes it's easy to want something for somebody else, even if it's more than you want for yourself.

And it's funny, looking back. I think about it from time to time. A thing happens, and it's a thing big enough to save a life, and you don't know why it happened. And you sure didn't know it was such a big deal at the time. But, looking back, you wonder why things work out the way they do.

Sometimes people are scared of a thing that won't hurt them. But they're not scared for no reason. They're just not scared for the reason they think they are. Like when I was a kid. I liked to watch scary movies, so then I could be scared and tell myself it was about the werewolf or the vampire. But I was already scared. I was just looking for something to feel it about.

The core idea is that a thing is not a thing until it has an observer. And the observer seems to play a role in what kind of thing it will snap into being. But beyond that—no need to be so esoteric.

What I'm saying," he said, rising to a bit more anger now, his cheeks flushing slightly, "is that I'd like to know what good my life is to me." "The value of your life is your own choosing," Nathan said.

anybody can think the world is beautiful when it's all going their way. That's just like untested faith.

I know a man," he said, "A man who taught me that the reason people aren't happy is because they have these ideas about what the world should be. And the world is never just what they think it ought to be. If the world has to be a certain way for you to be happy, then you'll never be happy. Heck, I'm only twelve and even I know that.