Quotes About Perception

She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as nothing I walked in a gray world of nothing.

This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

Be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.

What she saw, she felt. Her eyes went straight to her heart.

She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

Who are you?' I didn't understand the question. I'm Uri', he said. 'What's your name?' I gave him my name. 'Stopthief.

Maybe it was the angle, but her fawn's eyes, looking up at me, seemed larger than ever. I had to make an effort to keep my balance lest I fall into them.

Ironic, Betty Lou said at last. The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers. It takes from the day, I said, gives to the night.

Events become feelings, feelings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

Beware of solipsism Funny word. Sounds like it means love of melons or something. I looked it up. It means believing that the self is the only reality. Am I solipsist?

Inside his house, a kid gets one name, but on the other side of the door, it's whatever the rest of the world wants to call him.

Sometimes I try to erase myself. And then, if I've done a good job, I'm erased. I'm nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl. And I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I'm not outside my world anymore, and I'm not really inside it either. The thing is, there's no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain.

But thats okay, because the history of a kid is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball. And if you want to know what it was like back when Maniac Magee roamed these part, well, just run you're hand under your movie seat and be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.

The pure whiteness, dazzling in the sun, was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Who was I to spoil it? Snow falls. Earth says: Here's a gift for you. And what do we do? We shovel it. Blow it. Scrape it. Plow it. Get it out of our way. We push it to our fringes. Is there anything uglier or sadder than a ten-day-old snow dump? It's not even snow anymore. It's slush.

Maniac kept trying, but he still couldn't see it, this color business. He didn't figure he was white any more than the East Enders were black. He looked himself over pretty hard and came up with at least seven different shades and colors right on his own skin, not one of them being what he would call white (except for his eyeballs, which weren't any whiter than the eyeballs of the kids in the East End).

For the life of him, he couldn't figure why these East Enders called themselves black. He kept looking and looking, and the colors he found were gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange. But never licorice, which, to him, was real black.

When the sun is a bike ride away, I will hear it. It will sound like wind in treetops. I will awaken.

At this time in his life Zinkoff sees no difference between the stars in the sky and the stars in his mother's plastic Baggie. He believes that stars fall from the sky sometimes, and that his mother goes around collecting them like acorns. He believes she has to use heavy gloves and dark sunglasses because the fallen stars are so hot and shiny. She puts them in the freezer for forty-five minutes, and when they come out they are flat and silver and sticky on the back and ready for his shirts.

In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same.

And I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I'm not outside my world anymore, and I'm not really inside it either. The thing is, there's no difference anymore between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain.

When you're inside your own story, you don't see things like a reader. You don't see your life in tidy paragraphs and chapters.

But its coolness lies beneath its looks.

What she saw, she felt. Her eyes went straight to her heart. The old man on the bench, for example, made her cry. The lumberjack ants made her laugh. The door of many colours put her in such a snit of curiosity that i had to drag her away;she felt she could not proceed with her life until she knocked on such a door.

Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There's a whole commotion going on inside us.'...'sometimes they just get in the way. The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our sense. Then -- maybe -- the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.