Quotes About Perspective

I love talking to strangers and absorb their life experiences.

I never really made a choice to live in America, so I should be aware of the social strata outside of the ones that I may live in.

It has become starkly apparent to me that we lack any sort of strategic foreign policy view, and when I say 'we,' I mean the country in general, but in particular, the Republican Party.

There is much more to life than what gets measured in accounts. Even economists know that.

Much of what we think of as cultural differences turn out to be differences in income.

Someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic, now commonly applied to economists Imagine

This guy's testimony is awesome. I hate my testimony. I wish I was addicted to heroin. But no. I had to grow up in a somewhat functional family situation. It's just not fair. Why can't I be a crack addict who robbed Fort Knox using nothing but a can of hairspray and a plastic ice cream scoop? Thanks a lot, God.

Sometimes laughing isn't the best judge of what's funny, 'cause I think there's a lot of things that are really funny that don't make you laugh, that don't make you physically, audibly make a noise, but is something that is much more powerful than that.

the modern Ukrainian state is that it has never been able to create an all-encompassing post-Soviet narrative of modern Ukrainian history that was broadly accepted by most, if not all.

For as long as anyone can remember, the history of Kosovo has been a battlefield pitting Serbs against Albanians. Each believes different things because each has been taught different things, and as they reach further back into time it becomes easier to argue whatever they want in order to find support for their view of the present.

It is probably difficult for the average person to imagine becoming accustomed to a yacht, servants, and limousines, but consider how you would feel if you could never take a hot shower again. Many people in wealthier nations have become used to this pleasure and actually think of it as a necessity. Actually, a hot shower is clearly a luxury, especially when we consider that most of the world's population has never experienced such a pleasure.

The facts miss the heart of the matter; to give us a clear picture, the facts need a vehicle, the anecdote

Bij het ontdekken van die verschillen zeiden ze 'ah,ja,' met een toon van vergeving - er konden nu eenmaal niet alleen maar overeenkomsten zijn.

the self-understandings of cultural producers."2 They do so by drawing heavily on interviews and email conversations with some 130 participants (interviews are conducted by myself unless otherwise referenced) as well as the vibrant, sometimes urgent accounts of contemporaneous writers,

It was strange. I was already looking at something as it had been. History looked so calm.

You are here so that I can hear what happened at the top of Stav Kesh. I've learned through my long life that stories are ... fluid. And that the truth is often found in the sum of the parts. So I'll have each of you tell me your own version of events. - Master Lha-Mi

If I have any advice for you, it comes down to this: never imagine you know more than you do. Because the truth is, you almost certainly know less than you think.

I hate plays. I've never seen the point of paying money to watch people shout a lot and pretend to die, and now that I'm the father of three young children I don't have to.

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

It wasn't a question of deceit. Just the opposite; he wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.

the glass of wine I've drunk is beginning to take a few corners off the world...

One takes great pleasure in seeing children acquire skills one does not have, seeing them become, thankfully, different from oneself.