Quotes About Perception

If asked in a court of law what happened and what was said, I could only attest to the words "heading," "stagnating" and "peaceable." I'd never thought of myself as peaceable—or its opposite—until then. I would also swear to the truth of the biscuit tin; it was burgundy red, with the Queen's smiling profile on it.

you find yourself repeating, "They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays.

In truth, he was just another man, behaving as men did in books, and she was just another woman for believing otherwise.

You find yourself repeating, They grow up so quickly, don't they? when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays.

Film-makers and actors can only show a version of the act, but writers can express what people are thinking, feeling, as well as doing.

everyone has their love story. Even if it was a fiasco, even if it fizzled out, never got going, had all been in the mind to begin with: that didn't make it any the less real. And it was the only story

I would find myself staring resentfully at people on buses merely going home at the end of their day. How could they sit there so idly and unknowingly, their indifferent profiles on display, when the world was about to be changed?

I was deeply misled by Lady Chatterley's Lover, which seemed to insist that running naked through damp undergrowth with wild flowers entwined in your pubic hair was just about the closest thing to heaven.

I think a great book—leaving aside other qualities such as narrative power, characterization, style, and so on—is a book that describes the world in a way that has not been done before; and that is recognized by those who read it as telling new truths—about society or the way in which emotional lives are led, or both—such truths having not been previously available, certainly not from official records or government documents, or from journalism or television.

the history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet it's the most deliquescent. We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history—even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?

Con quale frequenza raccontiamo la storia della nostra vita? Aggiustandola, migliorandola, applicandovi tagli strategici? E più avanti si va negli anni, Meno corriamo il rischio che qualcuno intorno a noi ci possa contestare quella versione dei fatti, ricordandoci che la nostra vita non è la nostra vita, ma solo la storia che ne abbiamo raccontato. Agli altri, ma soprattutto noi stessi. da Il senso di una fine

But it's still the eyes we look at, isn't it? That's where we found the other person, and find them still.

All'improvviso mi sembra che una delle differenze tra la gioventù è la vecchiaia potrebbe essere questa: da giovani, ci inventiamo un futuro diverso per noi stessi; da vecchi, un passato diverso per gli altri. da Il senso di una fine

History is not just the lies of the victors; it is also the self-delusions of the defeated.

Vivimos con suposiciones muy fáciles, ¿no? Por ejemplo, que la memoria es igual a sucesos más tiempo. Pero es algo mucho más extraño. ¿Quién dijo que la memoria es lo que creíamos que habíamos olvidado? Y debería ser obvio que el tiempo no actúa como un fijador, sino más bien como un disolvente. Pero no conviene —no es útil— creer esto; no nos ayuda a seguir adelante; por lo tanto, lo pasamos por alto.

Perhaps a sense of death is like a sense of humour. We all think the one we've got - or haven't got - is just about right, and appropriate to the proper understanding of life. It's everyone else who's out of step.

One of my sons writes books I can read, but cannot understand, and the other writes books I can understand, but cannot read.

Wilde also established another prime rule of fame in the modern age: that there is no such thing as bad publicity, there is only publicity. Success is better measured in column inches than by what those columns contain.

My brother distrusts the essential truth of memories; I distrust the way we colour them in. We each have our own cheap-mail-order paintbox, and our favourite hues. Thus, I remembered Grandma a few pages ago as petite and unopinionated. My brother, when consulted, takes out his paintbrush and counterproposes short and bossy.

for all a lifetime's internal struggling, you were finally no more than what others saw you as.

the littleness of life that art exaggerates"?

If I failed to display negatives, then positives would be assumed: this was how it worked.

Se había imaginado que, en el mundo moderno, el tiempo y el lugar ya no eran importantes en las historias de amor. Al mirar atrás vio que habían desempeñado en la suya una función más grande de lo que había pensado. Había sucumbido a la antigua, continuada, indeleble ilusión: que de algún modo los amantes están fuera del tiempo.

It is only a metaphor—or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events.