Quotes About Insight

We must know that we may know.

All work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes—which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification -which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before.

The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We

It was as if he were a single whole, grasped by her first glance at him, like some irreducible absolute, like an axiom not to be explained any further, as if she knew everything about him by direct perception, and what awaited her now was only the process of identifying her knowledge.

The man who discovers new knowledge is the permanent benefactor of humanity.

A hint of the smile remained in his features at all times, particularly when he listened; it was a look of good-natured amusement, as if he were swiftly and patiently discarding the irrelevant in the words he heard and going straight to the point a moment ahead of the speaker.

Trust your subconscious. If it does not deliver the kind of material you want, it will at least give you the evidence of what is wrong.

back, to feel the reality of his

Stories are not mere flights of fantasy or instruments of political power and control. They link us to our past, provide us with critical insight into the present and enable us to envision our lives not just as they are but as they should be or might become. Imaginative knowledge is not something you have today and discard tomorrow. It is a way of perceiving the world and relating to it.

do not , under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.

Fiction was not a panacea, but it did offer us a critical way of appraising and grasping the world—not just our world but that other world that had become the object of our desires.

It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless.

We the Readers are like Dorothy or Alice: we step into this magical world in order to return and retell the story through our own eyes, thus giving new meaning to the story as well as to our lives.

The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted.

what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.

That first day I asked my students what they thought fiction should accomplish, why one should bother to read fiction at all.

The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don't want to know, what you don't want to find out. But something forces you anyway.

Another, with a flash of insight, turned to me and said, "You know, Professor, he is one of those people who have a knack for becoming legendary. I mean, they cannot be ignored.

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.

I'd met my share of highly credentialed, high-IQ morons

Where there is no experience the wise man is silent.

How could we judge other men until we had stood in their shoes? This

The most important thing you need to do [in this job] is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you're doing is thinking.

I were to travel back in time, I might urge the young man I was to set the books aside for a minute, open the windows, and let in some fresh air (my smoking habit was then in full bloom). I'd tell him to relax, go meet some people, and enjoy the pleasures that life reserves for those in their twenties. The few friends I had in New York tried to offer similar advice.