Quotes About Perception

Use the word "y'all," and before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated form of you all was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church.

Following a brief period of hard-won independence she came to appreciate the fact that people aren't foolish as much as they are kind.

I explained that he was Chinese, and she asked if the movie would be in Chinese. No, I said, he lives in America. In California. He's been there since he was a baby. Then what does it matter if he's Chinese? Well, I said, he's got... you know, a sensibility.

It bothered me that the bag bothered me more than head did, but what are you going to do? A person doesn't conciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.

In my book, if you want to be treated like an old person, you have to look like one. That means no face-lift, no blond hair, and definitely no fishnet stockings.

If you read an essay in Esquire and don't like it, there could be something wrong with the essay. If it's in The New Yorker, on the other hand, and you don't like it, there's something wrong with you.

As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts. By this I meant that I would stop living in a fantasy world; that, while standing in line for a hamburger or my shot at the ATM, I would not daydream about befriending a gorilla or inventing a pill that would make hair waterproof.

I might reinvent myself to strangers, but to this day, as far as my family is concerned, I'm still the one most likely to set your house on fire.

Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face. Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.

The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready-- so who was she to advise me on anything?

My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect.

This afternoon's Radio 4 quiz show included the line "One in three Americans weighs as much as the other two.

Fly enough, and you learn to go brain-dead when you have to. It's sort of like time travel. One minute you're bending to unlace your shoes,and the next thing you know you're paying fourteen dollars for a fruit cup, wondering, How did I get here?

Question: What's the difference between a whore and a bitch? Answer: A whore will sleep with anybody. A bitch will sleep with anybody… but you.

Gambling to me is what a telephone pole might be to a groundhog. He sees that it's there but doesn't for the life of him understand why.

The people I hung out with in my early twenties were middle-class and, at least to our minds, artistic. We'd all turned our backs on privilege, but comfortably, the way you can when you still have access to it.

Some people, I thought, opening the wet wipes so I could wash the tumor off my hands before I touched my wallet.

In binghamton, new york, winter meant snow, and though I was young when we left, I was able to recall great heaps of it, and use that memory as evidence that North Carolina was, at best, a third-rate institution. What little snow there was would usually melt an hour or two after hitting the ground, and there you'd be in your windbreaker and unconvincing mittens, forming a lumpy figure made mostly of mud. Snow Negroes, we called them. The

I attribute my wife's language to the fact that she's one-quarter spaniel. She says she's only an eighth, but, come on, the ears say it all. That and her mouth. (The Faithful Setter)

He spends a lot of time telling you how smart he is, which is odd because, if you're truly all that bright, people can usually figure it out on their own.

I think there is a difference between comic essays and war reporting, and people can tell that.

Love seemed all the sweeter when it was misunderstood, condemned by the outside world.

They did not live in a child's house, we lived in theirs.

He secretly thinks he looks like Marlon Brando, but take a good look a young Marlin Perkins is more like it! Maybe that's what he sees in Annette Kelper—he's an animal lover.