Quotes About Insight

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

Whenever I'm writing a script, I'm scoring myself by playing the right kind of music.

Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before.

Only he with the hobbled foot knows the beauty of running. Only he with the severed ear can appreciate what the sweetest music must sound like. Our ailments complete us. That we in our sinful souls can ever imagine charity- 'She can't go on for a moment. 'We may not always be able to practice charity, but that in this world we can even imagine it at all! That act of daring requires the greatest challenge

Every choice brings wisdom in its wake. If you got to have the wisdom first, it wouldn't be a choice--just policy

As an old friend of mine once said when I brought him some interesting brownies, 'You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes,'" she replied. "Haven't you read your Maimonides?

Only he with the hobbled foot fully knows the beauty of running. Only he with the severed ear can apprehend what the sweetest music must sound like. Our ailments complete us.

How truly novel. The emotional life of furniture. I never.

Gossip is instructive," said the Wizard. "It tells which way the wind is blowing.

A little bird told me, said the Lion.

How like a spoon with a razor edge is human edge.

Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.

Nothing that is spiritual can fail to shine. Of course we can't see it directly, because the shadow it casts is just another kind of light. You have to look sideways to see it, but once you see it, you can never un-see it. It is the light you see in the faces of children.

Humans are so blind, their eyes on the ground, themselves always at the center. Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much.

You only seem to read in yourself what you have not.

Every choice brings wisdom in its wake. If you got to have the wisdom first, it wouldn't be a choice - just policy. pg. 504

Was it an accident... or is it just that the world unwraps itself to you again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew?

You always said I could see the present," said Candle, when she could speak. "But I can see nothing about her—my own daughter." Liir smoothed his hand over her silky flank. "Maybe that's not so surprising. Maybe all parents are blindest to their own offspring.

Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery

Secrets are revealed as you are ready to understand them.

I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal practices or cite up-to-date studies.

It turns out that stating a problem clearly often suggests its solution. p 32

by politely asking questions ..., we often can clarify our approach, prevent false steps and needless work, and end up with a better result

Understanding the Four Tendencies gives us a richer understanding of the world.