Quotes About Perception

Truth is like the town whore. Everybody knows her, but nonetheless, it's embarrassing to meet her on the street.

People who think honestly and deeply have a hostile attitude towards the public.

When, for instance, we say that a literary work is good or bad, we are making a value judgment (...) Objective evidence for subjective preferences does not makes the value judgment itself objective, but merely objectifies the preference.

The so-called physical universe—"the world so described"—turns out to be constituted by mathematical structures which we ourselves have imposed; in a word, it proves to be "man-made." Yet this way of putting it is also misleading; for inasmuch as physical knowledge is partly objective, "the world so described" must be "partly objective" as well. One is left with a curiously equivocal conception, which may enlighten the wise but is bound to deceive the unwary

I know neither day nor night, and the whole world fades around me.

Bare empty space is a relative new conception — one that would be alien, unfamiliar, and incomprehensible to people of primal and ancient cultures. If we think of these earlier views of space and time as naive, misinformed, and anthropomorphic, we must at least recognize the sense of home, security, and support the earlier conceptions of space gave to those who believed and dwelt in them. We have given up this nourishing quality of space — of our abode — at our peril.

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.

When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty.

I think [aging] has nothing to recommend it. You don't gain any wisdom as the years go by. You fall apart, is what happens. People try and put a nice varnish on it, and say, well, you mellow. You come to understand life and accept things. But you'd trade all of that for being 35 again.

Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.

I've never felt Truth was Beauty. Never. I've always felt that people can't take too much reality. I like being in Ingmar Bergman's world. Or in Louis Armstrong's world. Or in the world of the New York Knicks. Because it's not this world. You spend your whole life searching for a way out. You just get an overdose of reality, you know, and it's a terrible thing. I'm always fighting against reality.

All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.

When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.

Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing.

It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.

I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.

This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can't.

He [the psychiatrist] said, well, do I think that sex is dirty and I said: "It is if you're doing it right."

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God's mind - a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you've just made a down payment on a house.

Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right.

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.

Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.

Bisexuality automatically doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

For the first year of marriage I had basically a bad attitude. I tended to place my wife underneath a pedestal