Quotes About Perspective

For even if you should have stood your ground, he said, yet what ground was it?

There was a sharp crack from somewhere on the mountain. Then another. It's just a tree falling, he said. It's okay. The boy was looking at the dead roadside trees. It's okay, the man said. All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us.

Looking over the country with those sunken eyes as if the world out there had been altered or made suspect by what he'd seen of it elsewhere. As if he might never see it right again. Or worse did see it right at last. See it as it had always been, would forever be.

It may be that the life I desire for her no longer even exists, yet I know what she does not. That there is nothing to lose.

I've lot a lot of friends over these last few years. Not all of em older than me neither. One of the things you realize about gettin older is that no everbody is goin to get older with you.

She knew that in the end you really cant know. You cant get hold of the world. You can only draw a picture. Whether it's a bull on the wall of a cave or a partial differential equation it's all the same thing.

And he no longer cared to tell which were things done and which dreamt.

Don't fear Death. Its only gonna help you die faster, its not gonna help you live.

I agreed with him that there wasnt a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it dont last long. I waited for him to smile but he didnt.

The Good Book says that the meek shall inherit the earth and I expect that's probably the truth. I aint no freethinker, but I'll tell you what. I'm a long way from bein convinced that it's all that good a thing.

One of the things you realize about gettin older is that not everbody is goin to get older with you.

White: We were born in such a fix as this. Suffering and human destiny are the same thing. Each is a description of the other. Black: We aint talkin about sufferin. We talkin about bein happy. White: Well you cant be happy if you're in pain. Black: Why not?

Black: If this aint the life you had in mind, what was? White: I dont know. Not this. Is your life the one you'd planned? Black: No, it aint. I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.

I no longer have an opinion about reality. I used to. Now I dont. The first rule of the world is that everything vanishes forever. To the extent that you refuse to accept that then you are living in a fantasy.

Algunas cosas las olvidas, no? Olvidas lo que quieres recordar y recuerdas lo que quieres olvidar.

Anyway, you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. I was too young for one war and too old for the next one. But I seen what come out of it. You can be patriotic and still believe that some things cost more than they're worth. Ask them Gold Star mothers what they paid and what they got for it. You always pay too much. Particularly for promises. There aint no such thing as a bargain promise.

Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else. Probably the best way is to be from Mars.

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don't deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I don't recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did.

There's data in the world available only to those who have reached a certain level of wretchedness. You dont know what's down there if you havent been down there. Joy on the other hand hardly even teaches gratitude. A thoughtful silence.

Do you think horses understand what people say? I aint sure most people do.

It must surely be true that there is no such collective domain of joy as there is of sorrow. You cant be sure that another man's happiness resembles your own. But where the collective of pain is concerned there can be little doubt at all.

Billy lit a cigarette with a brand from the fire and laid the brand back He smoked. It looks a lot better from up here than it doesn down there, dont it? Yes. It does. There's a lot of things look better at a distance. Yeah? I think so. I guess there are. The life you've lived, for one. Yeah. Maybe what of it you aint lived yet, too.

It's all right to say that the reason we cant fully grasp the quantum world is because we didnt evolve in that world.

When you're a kid you have these notions about how things are going to be.... You get a little older and you pull back on some of that. I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain.