Quotes About Insight

Nearly every day I wake up shocked at how little in this world I comprehend.

No matter what happens on God's green earth, Father acts like it's a movie he's already seen and we're just dumb for not knowing how it comes out.

But a thing grows teeth once it's put into words. Now I felt that worm digging

How could anyone get a sensible bearing on life from the stage of an auditorium, or make any useful statements from that position?

But the weirdness wasn't in what I didn't know. It's what I did know.

I had a window seat, and in a Greyhound you're up high. You pass through the land like some rajah on an elephant looking down on your kingdom.

Maggot calmed me down by explaining Bible stories were a category of superhero comics.

When everybody around you thinks the same way, you can't even see what you're believing in.

I love it for what it tells me about life. I love fiction, strangely enough, for how true it is, If it can tell me something I didn't already know, or maybe suspected but never framed quite that way, or never before had sock me so divinely in the solar plexus, that was a story worth a read.

Only what do you know?

By a man's fingernails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the calluses of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs, by his movements—by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. SHERLOCK HOLMES, 1892

Indeed I do know what boys are like, especially that horrid little monster, Adele thought, but said, rather shakily, 'Yes, Emma, you are right to some extent. But occasionally children must be

be friendly. 'I'm not totally without a brain, Sasha. Of course

a photojournalist. Eventually she had come to understand

As Benjamin Disraeli said, It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

Negli occhi della gente si vede quello che vedranno, non quello che hanno visto.

Do all the people who know me know me better than I know myself?

You've looked into the abyss, and can feel it looking back still;

What cops call hunches," Trahan said, "FBI hackers call pattern recognition.

Barry Eisler

know. I get it. Because when I knew but they didn't know I knew, that was good. But when they knew that I knew but I didn't know they knew, that was bad. But now that I know they know that I know, and they don't know it, it's good again.

Open your eyes, you idiot, I wanted to say. This woman is a shark. She's from a different world, a different species. There's something way fucking wrong here. Instead: "Harry, my gut tends to be pretty good about these things.

interesting how much insight you could have into your own pathologies, and how little impact the insight would have on your underlying needs. Or on your behavior.

And maybe on some level his approach was manipulative, but what mattered most was the way it made her feel. Like he understood her, without ever having to be heavy-handed about it.