Quotes About Perception

Aside from how I look, I act younger than I am, too." "That you can expect to get worse.

In nome della ragione, si cerca sempre un motivo più elevato, un significato più profondo: allora avevo ancora l'abitudine di sforzarmi di essere ragionevole anche sull'irragionevole e cercare la complessità nelle cose semplici. Esigevo risposte dalla mia intelligenza, quando non erano affatto necessarie. Pensavo: non può essere così meschino e insulso come sembra. Questo non può essere che un decimo della sua storia. Deve avere, dentro, qualcosa di più.

Actually, we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them - at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them

exformation, which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but evoked by a communication in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections within the recipient.

The big hair was red-gold and the skin peachy-tinged pale and arms freckled and zy-gomatics indescribable and her eyes an extra-natural HD green.

the literary equivalent of tearing the petals off and grinding them up and running the goo through a spectrometer to explain why a rose smells so pretty.

Each man, passing through his department's hall, felt the special subsonic disquiet the overtime executive in topcoat and unfresh suit and loosened tie feels as he moves in nighttime through areas meant to be experienced in, and as, daytime.

Realism: if Realism called it like it saw it, Metafiction simply called it as it saw itself seeing itself see it.

he cannot close his eyes without being subjected to the diplopic double image of his lover's steady, supplicating and aging (!?) eyes, and then his own eyes vertical above her, darting from side to side, more concerned with how he is seen than with what he sees.

David Foster Wallace

Actually, I have never seen an average American household. Except on TV.

As we sometimes also say about elements of fashion and etiquette, the way you use English "makes a statement" or "sends a message"—even though these statements/messages often have nothing to do with the actual information you're trying to communicate.

A song of tough love for a generation whose eyes have moved fish-like to the sides of its head, forward vision usurped by a numb need to survive the now, side-placed eyes scanning for any garde of which to be avant .

Everyone around us could see the way Lyndon hung on the sound of his wife's voice, saw the tiny curtsies, her social motions, as though each movement of Lady Bird gently burst a layer of impediment between her and him.

Helping them eliminate the error involves drumming into student writers two big injunctions: (1) Do not presume that the reader can read your mind — anything that you want the reader to visualize or consider or conclude, you must provide; (2) Do not presume that the reader feels the same way that you do about a given experience or issue — your argument cannot just assume as true the very things you're trying to argue for.

If his young companions have their own special delusions—D.L.'s that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive, Sternberg's that a body is a prison and not a shelter—Mark's is that he's the only person in the world who feels like the only person in the world. It's a solipsistic delusion.

It was true Advils looked just like little brown M&M's. Motrin, in the right light, were SweetTarts. A band of MAO inhibitor called Nardil looked just like the tiny round Red Hots we'd all eaten as children.

the detumescence of a nipple scraped in shimmy by cotton

Nipples like pencil erasers, hard and corrective against wide shallow breasts whose broad curves I know like the Lake's own tired sweep.

The word around good old Table 64 last night was that in primitive and incredibly poor Cozumel the U.S. dollar is treated like a UFO: "They worship it when it lands.

Tienen expresiones más glaciales; los encuentros de miradas parecen peligrosos de la forma en que pueden ser peligrosos los encuentros de miradas en el metro. Las mujeres suelen llevar atuendos que te sugieren lo que puedes ver de ellas cuando no llevan atuendos

Julie ha detto a Faye che lei è convinta che due persone innamorate attraversano tre fasi distinte prima di arrivare a conoscersi davvero. All'inizio si raccontano aneddoti e gusti personali. Poi ciascuno dei due dice all'altro in che cosa crede. E poi ciascuno osserva la relazione che c'è fra quello in cui l'altro ha detto di credere e quello che in effetti fa .

Statisticians report that television is watched over six hours a day in the average American household. I don't know any fiction writers who live in average American households. I suspect Louise Erdrich might. Actually I have never seen an average American household. Except on TV.

David Foster Wallace