Quotes About Perception

I look at this place (Antigua), I look at these people (Antiguans), and I cannot tell whether I was brought up by, and so come from, children, eternal innocents, or artists who have not yet found eminence in a world too stupid to understand, or lunatics who have made their own lunatic asylum, or an exquisite combination of all three.

Something I had always known - the way I knew my skin was the color brown of a nut rubbed repeatedly with a soft cloth, or the way I knew my own name - something I took completely for granted, "the sun is shining, the air is warm," was not so.

Oh, l'indignité qu'il y a dans la mort ; heureusement que les morts semblent incapables de s'en apercevoir.

I had just begun to notice that people who knew the correct way to do things such as hold a teacup, put food on a fork and bring it to their mouth without making a mess on the front of their dress—they were the people responsible for the most misery, the people least likely to end up insane or paupers.

The sun was shining but the air was cold. It was the middle of January, after all. But I did not know that the sun could shine and the air remain cold; no one had ever told me.

en blekgul sol som verkade ha försvagats av överansträngning. Men det var soligt i alla fall, vilket var trevligt och lindrade min hemlängtan. Så när jag såg att solen sken klev jag upp och satte mig en klänning. Det var helt fel. Solen sken visserligen men det var kallt i luften. Det var mitten av januari men jag kände inte till att solen kunde skina utan att det blev varmt. Det hade ingen upplyst mig om.

try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming

Mariah did not seem to notice what she had in common with the other diners, or what I had in common with the waiters. She acted in her usual way, which was that the world was round and we all agreed on that, when I knew that the world was flat and if I went to the edge I would fall off.

She could imagine the demise of the fowl of the air, fish in the sea, mankind itself, but not that the only man she had ever loved would no longer love her. She complained about the weather, she complained about all sorts of things that ordinarily she would not have noticed; she criticized my behavior, and then she criticized herself for criticizing me.

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't my fault. But nothing could change the fact that where she saw beautiful flowers I saw sorrow and bitterness.

they were talking about themselves, and they seemed to take for granted that everything they said mattered. They were artists. I had heard of people in this position. I had never seen an example in the place where I came from. I noticed that mostly they were men. It seemed to be a position that allowed for irresponsibility, so perhaps it was much better suited to men.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

Why is a picture of something real eventually more exciting than the thing itself?

Lucy, a girl's name for Lucifer. That my mother would have found me devil-like did not surprise me, for I often thought of her as god-like, and are not the children of gods devils? I did not grow to like the name Lucy-I would have much preferred to be called Lucifer outright-but whenever I saw my name I always reached out to give it a strong embrace.

The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark. The longer they are kept apart—idea of thing, reality of thing—the wider the width, the deeper the depth, the thicker and darker the darkness.

Look at me all flesh and bones, head, arms, and legs, do you see a Monkey in my human flesh, and bones, because I am Black. Oh No No, said the Monkey, I don't talk."

Better and ugly face than an ugly mind.

T]he minds of men are mirrors to one another' (T 365), Hume remarked, and just as mirrors are not in control of the reflections they give, so also our feelings, and beliefs, cannot help but be impinged upon by the feelings and beliefs of those around us.

It felt oily in his mind and left an aftertaste in his soul.

Sin so bewitches the soul that it makes the soul call evil good and good evil; bitter sweet and sweet bitter, light darkness and darkness light.

All stories are true. But some of them never happened.

Don't ascribe to evil what can be attributed to well-intentioned stupidity.

Just because I'm a murdering, thieving, cowardly, traitorous sort doesn't mean I can't do my job properly.

Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.