Quotes About Perception

Are you always attracted to damaged women?" "I didn't know there were any other kind.

La gente non legge pensando all'arte: legge pensando alle persone. E le giudica per quello che sono. E come credi che giudicherà i personaggi del tuo racconto? A quali conclusioni credi che arriverà? Ci hai pensato?

A ses yeux, celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs de bonté était bon, celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs de loyauté était loyal. Celui qui donnait des signes extérieurs d'intelligence, intelligent. C'est ainsi qu'il n'avait jamais vu clair en sa fille, ni en sa femme, ni en sa seule et unique maîtresse – il était sans doute loin de voir clair en lui...

Non avevo mai giudicato così severamente un adulto in vita mia - né i miei genitori, né Alvin e neppure lo zio Monty - e non avevo capito, fino a quel momento, come la sfacciata vanità di certi perfetti idioti possa avere un'influenza decisiva sulla sorte delle persone

The detail, the immensity of the detail, the force of the detail, the weight of the detail—the rich endlessness of detail surrounding you in your young life like the six feet of dirt that'll be packed on your grave when you're dead.

Los recuerdos del pasado no son recuerdos de los hechos, sino recuerdos de tu imaginación de los hechos

It's not your fault that you don't know what Gentiles think when they read something like this.

They don't know about art. Maybe I don't know about art myself. Maybe none of our family does, not the way that you do. But that's my point. People don't read art—they read about people.

I wonder if you fully understand just how very little love there is in this world for Jewish people. I don't mean in Germany, either, under the Nazis. I mean in run-of-the-mill Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Nice Guy, who otherwise you and I consider perfectly harmless. Nathan, it is there. I guarantee you it is there. I know it is there. I have seen

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong.

Chaque fois que je levais les yeux je voyais mon petit ami complètement gaga parce que j'étais une reine de beauté à la noix! T'étais un vrai gosse! Il a fallu que tu me transformes en princesse! Eh ben, regarde où ça m'a menée. A l'asile! Elle chez les dingues, ta princesse!

But there's no remaking reality

The authority of beauty is a very irrational thing.

Qué profundo es el oído! Piensa en lo que significa comprender algo que solamente has oído. ¡El carácter casi divino del oído! ¿No es por lo menos un fenómeno semidivino verte ante las inequidades más profundas de una existencia humana por el sencillo procedimiento de permanecer sentado en la oscuridad, escuchando lo que te dicen?

Mientras permanecía allí sentado con sus colegas resultaba extraño pensar que unas personas tan bien educadas, unos profesionales tan civilizados, hubieran cedido en buen grado al venerable sueño humano de una situación en la que un solo hombre puede encarnar el mal. Sin embargo, existe esa necesidad, y es imperecedera y profunda.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.

Elsewhere is wherever you are;

Jews have a reputation for being intelligent, and they are intelligent. The only place I have ever been where all the Jews are stupid is Israel.

the love thrust upon the Swede seemed actually to deprive him of feeling.

Guys with small dry lips, they turn me off, or if they smell bookish—you know, this dry pencil smell of men.

imaginación, y mi tarea en cuanto artista no consistía en desarrollar a mi imaginación, sino en contenerla, lo cual ya entonces me pareció imposible, porque todo era tan increíble que

But he was in his fifties and there I always question how hard can they get. With a younger guy you know it's an easier thing. With an older one you don't know.

Really, can they be this blind? Can people be so abysmally stupid and live?

fingerprint—it's no wonder that the shards of reality one person will cherish as a biography can seem to someone else who, say, happened to have eaten some ten thousand dinners at the very same kitchen table, to be a willful excursion into mythomania.