Quotes About Perception

You used to be such a sweet creature. So trusting." He tched gently. "Whatever happened to you?" "You.

Objectivity has about as much substance as the emperor's new clothes.

Maybe I am getting too grown to want to sleep with Mama. But like a baby, I still have this smallness to my mind. I don't need her hands to convince me the world I can't see from under my blanket is real. I need her hands to do more than her words. Convince me the world I see outside it- ain't.

Sometimes, Sam would say, "I love you, Daddy," and hold her breath for as long as she could so she wouldn't miss it if he's finally whispered, "I love you, too." Mommy said Daddy loved Sam but that men just don't say that kind of thing out loud. Sam knew that wasn't true because Mary McCallister's daddy always said, "I love you, baby girl!" for no reason at all.

Mr. Grandin wore a suit and tie every day. "That's how you know he doesn't work for a living," Sam's dad said. On

Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?

Nothing in all those "O swan" poems had ever mentioned that they hissed. Or resented being mistaken for felines. Or bit.

In late life, we can pose this question internally no matter what activity we are engaged in, whether we are quietly drinking a cup of tea, sitting in a noisy meeting, cooking a festive family dinner, or running a marathon. Our identity or self-sense at any moment can be rooted in ego or rooted in soul. It's not what we're doing but how we're doing—our state of mind—that makes the difference.

If the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, I think we'd see the beauty then and stand staring in awe.

Silence thronged the room, and he was aware of the focused scrutiny of the three people who confronted him.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

It was 100 feet of 16 mm black-and-white film of a car coming to a stop sign, and driving off. I had to decide how to frame and light it. It was magic. There was a sense of mystery.

Human beings are caught in a unique and unavoidable dilemma: on one hand, we have astounding powers of perception, memory, analysis, imagination - and we know it. We each feel our own uniqueness and grandeur; we should be gods. But we can't help noticing that our remarkable powers are attached to a dying animal. (summarizing Becker's writings)

Here today, not there tomorrow, gone leaving no incriminating evidence of my unpopular halfbaked world view. That's a good girl.

The words must conjure the character of a place for readers who may never see it. This may seem like magic, or incomparable talent, but the inspiration starts with acute observation.

Love is for fools and dreamers, who don't know better.

Sharper than a serpent's fang is a woman's tongue

The aim here is not to separate fact from fantasy but to show how each embodies a distinct class of knowledge and how one is deeply implicated in the other.

They are imbeciles who call my work abstract. That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things.

When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water. Well, I've tried to express just that. If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirits.

Truth in art is truth in circumstances.

There is nothing more amusing to Venetians than watching tourists who think the Grand Canal is all there is to Venice.

Why does everybody think I'm so wild? I'm not wild. I happen to stumble onto wildness. It gets in my path.

Change is seen as something evil only by those who have lost their youth or sense of humor.