Quotes About Perception

Like so many of Archie's words, they seemed not to enter through my ears but to settle on my skin, there to burrow like tiny eggs awaiting the rain of my maturity, when they would hatch and I at last would understand.

I was feeling nine ways at once, and they all ended up at the touch of her hand on my ear...

I took one step onto the field and stopped. What was I doing? 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—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.

And there was more to her seeing than that. What she saw, she felt. Her eyes went straight to her heart.

Good Boy: Just because he doesn't get into trouble doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate trouble.

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 senses. Then–maybe-the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.

Still he had not cracked a smile, but his eyes were different now, they were here.

You remember everything people say to you?' I locked into his eyes. 'Everything /some/ people say to me.

In their beaks they pinched the edges of the town, plucked it up and flew away with it

The empty look on Beans's face indicated that the answer had reached his ears, but no farther.

In the utter darkness he felt himself to be nothing but ears and fingertips. He could feel Nipper's heartbeat, putt-putting away behind the toothpick ribs like a tiny motor scooter. He could feel the cold, golden gaze of the trophy pigeon two rooms away. The silence of the house at night was not total. Somewhere a clock was ticking. Cricks and creaks came from nearby and distant quarters, as if the house were twitching in a sleep of its own.

Easier to rearrange the stars than a father's mind.

Real mothers don't die, said Ferdi. No one had an answer to that. So we talked about oranges. Like mothers, oranges were a common topic. Enos said he had eaten them many times, but Ferdi said they were only made up. What do oranges taste like? I asked Enos. He closed his eyes. Like nothing else. What do they look like? Like a little sun before it sets. Feeding said, Oranges don't exist.

I can't believe it. Summer's almost over. Summer has a funnel shape. It seems real wide at first and deep. Slow. Like it will last forever. You just float on top of it.

They were laughing and playing ball when Palmer, letting fly a long shot from beyond the bed, said, "Do you like my father?" Dorothy watched the ball bounce off the door. "What kind of question is that?" "Do you?" "Sure, why?" "Do you think he's nice?" "Yeah, don't you?" Palmer thought for a moment. "Yeah, he is. I guess that's the problem.

Same old across-the-street Dorothy he had known all his life. And yet, somehow, not the same old Dorothy. Though she looked the same as always, Palmer had been seeing something else in her lately. Whatever it was, it registered not in his eyes but in his feelings, and was most clearly known to him by its absence in the company of anyone but her. It made him feel floating.

with enough rock in your system, you could hear every noise in the universe.

Why am I always attracting women who still slept with stuffed animals?

People prefer to avoid confronting deformity and when they do it's only for kicks.

She protected herself by making herself believe no-one else could ever really understand her.

Furthermore, the world of books, like meat in cans, was somehow richer and more flavorful than the everyday variety. In ordinary life, for example, one saw many people without really knowing them, while in books one even knew what people were thinking and planning.

Do you realize that one out of every four Americans is unbalanced? Think of your three closest friends. If they seem normal, then you are the one.

As a boy I got the idea that death was an animal which lay curled inside waiting to swallow us.

What about the war?' the young woman sitting on Chance's left said, leaning close to him. 'The war? Which war?' said Chance. 'I've seen many wars on TV.' 'Alas,' the woman said, 'in this country, when we dream of reality television wakes us. To millions the war, I suppose, is just another TV program. But out there, at the front, real men are giving their lives.