Quotes About Perspective

It was strange enough to think that Norah knew who I was before I knew who she was. That she'd been in Tris's orbit without me noticing. But I guess you don't see the planets when you're staring at the sun. You just get blinded.

We all contain mysteries, especially when seen from the outside.

We are retracing the lines and windows that are no longer there. We are rebuilding from our memory, trying to do with our eyes open what we usually do with our eyes closed.

I guess that's the danger with firsts—you lose all sense of proportion. So I made a fool of myself, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I was so devoted to him.

So what's your story?" Ryan asks. Avery looks up at him, hand still in the water. "My story?" "Yeah. Everybody has at least one.

i am constantly telling him that i'm not sure the laws of sex and the city apply when there's no sex and there's no city, but then he looks at me like i'm throwing spiked darts at the heart-shaped helium balloons that populate his mind, so i let it go

If I woke up in a different body every day--if you never knew what I was going to look like tomorrow--would you still love me?

Reading is not life. Reading is creating LIFE in your head. And that can only help you so much in a storm...

I find it hard to look at her. I know from experience that beneath every peripheral girl is a central truth.

We all have about 98 percent in common with each other. For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.

The feeling that the world is full of people who think different is synonymous with wrong.

I realized I would always be missing something. That no matter what I did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn't miss meant more to me than the things I missed. I had to think about what I wanted, outside the heat of wanting.

I guess I don't believe these thing can ever be easy, although I also don't see why they have to be hard.

There were only two options—something was wrong with everyone else, or something was wrong with me. Because either they were tricking themselves into thinking there was a tomorrow together, or I was the only person who was leaving.

And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn't miss meant more to me than the things I missed.

Must interests be interesting? That is, must they be interesting to someone other than yourself?

There's truly a story on every corner. But still might be a shock, to realize you are just one story walking among millions

I try to get the basic facts, not the details. The details can be interesting, but they can also distract me into attachment. The worst thing in the world would be to pretend to know the people whose lives I step through. They cannot be homes to me. They must be hotel rooms.

We want to whisper to him that the only way to free yourself from shame is to realize how completely arbitrary it is—just what he was saying a day ago.

I was hurt. Of course I was hurt. But in a perverse way, I was relieved that you were the one who made the mistake. It made me worry less about myself.

She looked like she was waking up in a strange place—only she knew she hadn't gone to sleep yet, and that this was actually life.

It's never the same city. Your city isn't even the same as my city, I bet.

The sound of words as they're said is always different from the sound they make when they're heard, because the speaker hears some of the sound from the inside.

But does he see everything, or only what he wants to be seeing? This is always one of the great questions of love.