Quotes About Perception

What is essential is invisible to the eye. Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries.

the clatter of pots and pans and dishes. To others it was a cacophony. To Anton it was a symphony.

Irene Finney, like many very elderly people, knew that the world was indeed flat. It had a beginning and an end. And she had come to the edge.

was always human and never pleasant and often misleading. Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy. The people who don't insist on their sorrow can often be the ones who feel it most strongly.

He knew, as a man used to fear, the great danger of letting it take control. It distorted reality. Consumed reality. Fear created its own reality.

Now she sat in front of him, nearly submerged under layers of thick sweaters and blankets. She looked like a laundry hamper without a head.

Below that was the thrum of bumblebees climbing in and over and around the peonies. Getting lost. Bumbling around. It looked comical, ridiculous. But then so much did, unless you knew.

Everyone in the farmyard was staring at Gamache with open astonishment, including the donkeys. But human behavior often astonished them.

the one-eyed man is king,

You're not quite as ignorant as you pretend, Chief Inspector." "Oh, my ignorance knows no bounds, Father.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Armand

The trial is about facts, but feelings are also a fact.

But Beauvoir could feel what Ruth was sensing. Something was radiating off Gamache. Was it rage he felt from the chief? Jean-Guy wondered. It certainly wasn't fear. It was actually, Beauvoir realized with some surprise, extreme calm.

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her

But Beauvoir could feel what Ruth was sensing. Something was radiating off Gamache. Was it rage he felt from the chief? Jean-Guy wondered. It certainly wasn't fear. It was actually, Beauvoir realized with some surprise, extreme calm. He was like the center of gravity in the room.

She was beginning to see how quickly something completely normal could suddenly seem sinister, if you chose to see it that way.

Clara saw what others couldn't. Like that little boy in The Sixth Sense, but instead of seeing ghosts, Clara saw good. Which was itself pretty scary. So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.

experience, was something that needed to be removed. It was a chore that fell from the sky.

Don't you generate theories, based on probability, and then eliminate them as facts come in? Isn't that how you find killers?" "Very true. But we also have to consider emotions. How we feel about things influences how we see them.

Stating a truth, but leaving out a greater truth.

Ruth's last book of poetry was called I'm FINE. Which sounded good until you realized, often too late, that "F.I.N.E." stood for "Fucked-Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.

Anyone could run around, not many could quietly wait. As they did now. But that didn't mean Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Lacoste did nothing. As they waited they took in their surroundings.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Armand wondered if Florence understood that line from The Little Prince. He hadn't, as a child.

She's a triumph of image over reality. I'm not even sure if she knows what reality is anymore, she's so busy creating this image of herself.