Quotes About Perspective

That's the duty of the old," said the Librarian, "to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

Stories aren't made of language: they're made of something else. A little earlier I said that stories were about life; perhaps they're made of life.

You won't understand anything about imagination until you realise that it's not about making things up, it's about perception.

But then she remembered what the gyptians had said: Include things, don't leave them out. Look at things in their context. Include everything.

You forget I am a woman, Your Eminence, and thus not so subtle as a prince of the Church.

Nothing is just anything.

Has anyone ever added a single hour to the length of his life by worrying about it?

We need to imagine as well as measure.

You used to be optimistic. You used to think that whatever we did would turn out well. Even after we came back from the north, you used to think that. Now you're cautious, you're anxious… You're pessimistic. She knew he was right, but it wasn't right that he should speak to her accusingly, as if it was something to blame her for. I used to be young, was all she could find to say.

But I know that all the things I do know are very small compared with the things that I don't know

How can the weather have a state of mind?" said Papadimitriou. The gyptian said, "You think the weather is only out there? It's in here too," and tapped his head. "So do you mean that the weather's state of mind is just our state of mind?" "Nothing is just anything," the gyptian replied, and would say no more.

her." "That's the duty of the old," said the Librarian, "to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

Doesn't it scare you having your death close by all the time? said Lyra. Why ever would it? If he's there, you can keep an eye on him. I'd be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was.

Fritz had to stop himself from interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories are just as hard as clocks to put together, and they can go wrong just as easily--as we shall soon see with Fritz's own story in a page or two. Still, Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a pessimist, and that makes all the difference in the world.

The narrating voice that tells 'Middlemarch' is just as much a made-up character as Dorothea or Mr. Casaubon.

That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

Much ingenious interpretation of story is little more than seeing pleasing patterns in the sparks of a fire, but it does no harm.

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.

nor that she saw them as human-formed only because her eyes expected to. If she were to perceive their true form, they would seem more like architecture than organism, like huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling.

here am I, my hands red with blood and shame and wet with tears, longing to begin telling the story of Jesus, and not just for the sake of making a record of what happened: I want to play with it; I want to give it a better shape; I want to knot the details together neatly to make patterns and show correspondences, and if they weren't there in life, I want to put them there in the story, for no other reason than to make a better story.

You used to be optimistic. You used to think that whatever we did would turn out well. Even after we came back from the north, you used to think that. Now you're cautious, you're anxious…you're pessimistic." She knew he was right, but it wasn't right that he should speak to her so accusingly, as if it was something to blame her for. "I used to be young," was all she could find to say.

maybe from other experiences as well, that there are more ways than one, more than two, of seeing things and perceiving their meanings.

I remember. He meant the kingdom was over, the kingdom of heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.

In Malcolm's view the story was almost insufferable