Quotes About Perception

History is the lies of the victors," I replied, a little too quickly. "Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated.

We were essentially taking the piss, except when we were serious. He was essentially serious, except when he was taking the piss. It took us a while to work this out.

To be a stoic in an age of self-pity is to be judged standoffish; worse, unfeeling.

Margaret used to say that there were two kinds of women: those with clear edges to them, and those who implied mystery.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

When asked What The Novel Does, I tend to answer, 'It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.

Tai, kÄ… galiausiai prisimeni, ne visada yra tas pats, kÄ… patyrei

Vieni jausmai laik? pagreitina, kiti sul?tina, o kartais atrodo, kad jis dingsta - kol galop ateina akimirka, kai jis iš ties? dingsta ir jau niekada nebesugr?žta

Due altre cose ha detto nel corso degli anni: che certe donne non sono affatto misteriose ma vengono rese tali dall'incapacità degli uomini di capirle. da Il senso di una fine

This intrigued me much more. Simple, plangent words. What had I said about the voyeur inside me?

Dovrebbe apparirci ovvio come il tempo per noi non agisca affatto da fissativo, ma piuttosto da solvente. Solo che credere questo non conviene, non serve; non aiuta a tirare avanti; perciò fingiamo di non saperlo.

One had turned gay, after all these years, having suddenly started noticing the napes of young men's necks.

Don't think ill of me, remember me well. Tell people you were fond of me, that you loved me, that I wasn't a bad guy. Even if, perhaps, none of this was the case.

Sex as civic duty? I thought, somehow, this was very Dutch. Also, sort of adorable.

she wonders whether the Holy Ghost, conventionally represented as a dove, would not be better portrayed as a parrot. Logic is certainly on her side: parrots and Holy Ghosts can speak, whereas doves cannot.

Which are truer, the happy memories, or the unhappy ones? He decided, eventually, that the question was unanswerable.

This last isn't something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.

And if that was so, then perhaps the argument could be extended. For example, to say that you had once been happy, and to believe what you were saying, was the same as actually to have been happy. Could that be true? No, that was surely specious. On the other hand, the emotional record was not like a history book; its truths were constantly changing, and true even when incompatible.

Susan had pointed out that 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.

This was another skill women were meant to learn: when a man's story had come to an end. Mostly, it wasn't a problem, as the end was thumpingly obvious; or else the narrator started snorting with laughter in advance, which was always a pretty good clue. Martha had long ago decided only to laugh at things she found funny. It seemed a normal sort of rule; but most men found it rebuking.

We tend to slot any new relationship we come across into a preexisting category. We see what is general or common about it; whereas the participants see—feel—only what is individual and particular to them.

Jenže vzpomínky, které nám nakonec z?stanou, se pÃ…â"¢ece pokaždé neshodují s tím, co jsme vidÄ›li na vlastní o?i.

It was always my mother who policed me. My father was milder, and less given to judgement. He preferred to allow things to blow over, to let sleeping dogs lie, not to stir up mud; whereas my mother preferred facing facts and not brushing things under the carpet. My parents' marriage, to my unforgiving nineteen-year-old eye, was a car crash of cliché. Though I would have to admit, as the one making the judgement, that a "car crash of cliché" is itself a cliché.

But then we learn something else: that the brain doesm't like to be typecast. Just when you think everything is a matter of decrease, of subtraction and division, your brain, your memory, may surprise you. As it it's saying: Don't imagine you can rely on some comforting process of gradual decline--life's much more complicated than that. And so the brain will throw you scraps from time to time, even disengage those familiar memory loops.