Quotes About Perception

We use "depressed" as a synonym for "sad," which is fine, as we use "starving" as a synonym for "hungry," though the difference between depression and sadness is the difference between genuine starvation and feeling a bit peckish.

Minds can't see what they can't handle. It's like how humans never see the second hand of a clock mid-tick.

The weirdest thing about a mind is that you can have the most intense things going on in there but no one else can see them. The world shrugs. Your pupils might dilate. You may sound incoherent. Your skin might shine with sweat. And there was no way anyone seeing me in that villa could have known what I was feeling, no way they could have appreciated the strange hell I was living through, or why death seemed such a phenomenally good idea.

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us. —J. G. BALLARD

AS DR DAVID Adam says in his brilliant account of obsessive compulsive disorder, The Man Who Couldn't Stop: 'Only a fool or a liar will tell you how the brain works.' A brain is not a toaster. It is complex.

The quiet made her realize how much noise there was elsewhere in the world. Here, noise had meaning. You heard something and you had to pay attention.

the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment'.

When I first traveled around the globe, it took over a year, on a boat full of men, who were lucky if they made it. Now, the world is just there. All of it. In an hour I will be on a flight to Sydney, and by lunchtime I will have arrived. It makes me feel claustrophobic, as if the world is literally shrinking, like a balloon losing air.

on questioning why she looked so sad, she would remark, 'My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.' 'That's Montaigne, isn't it?' And she would give the tiniest nod. 'I quote others only in order the better to express myself,' she'd say, which was itself, I sensed, another quote.

Most gossip is envy in disguise. .. keep swimming." -Matt Haig The Midnight Library

but people only see the truth if it is close enough to their reality

And I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I have gone to the doctor many times, convinced of my imminent demise because of an illness I've googled myself into having. As a child, if my mum was late picking me up from primary school it would only take about a minute for me to convince myself she had probably died in a hideous car accident. That never happened, but it's continual not-happening-ness never stopped the possibility that it could happen. Every moment

I click through her photos.

She tried to make herself look as presentable as it was possible to look in the two seconds before the arrival of a man she simultaneously slept with every night and also hadn't ever slept with. Schrödinger's husband, so to speak.

They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside

People didn't feel the enormity of the world or their own smallness within it. When I first travelled around the globe, it took over a year, on a boat full of men, who were lucky if they made it. Now, the world is just there. All of it. In an hour I will be on a flight to Sydney, and by lunchtime I will have arrived. It makes me feel claustrophobic, as if the world is literally shrinking, like a balloon losing air.

You don't need the world to understand you. It's fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven't experienced. Some will. Be grateful.

It seems that you have spent all your life saying things that you aren't really thinking. This is one of your barriers.' 'Barriers?' 'Yes. You have a lot of them. They stop you from seeing the truth.' 'About what?' 'About yourself. And you really need to start trying. To see the truth. Because this matters.

Ein Mensch war wie eine Stadt. Ein paar weniger wünschenswerte Aspekte durften nicht den Blick aufs Ganze verstellen. Vielleicht gab es einiges, was man nicht mochte, ein paar zwielichtige Straßen und Vororte, aber wegen der guten Seiten lohne es sich doch. - S. 61

Der Turm ist meine Lieblingsfigur", sagte sie jetzt. "Man denkt, man müsse nicht auf ihn achten. Weil er sich immer unkompliziert geradeaus bewegt. Dame, Springer und Läufer behält man im Auge, weil sie sich heimlich anschleichen. Aber gerade der Turm wird einem oft zum Verhängnis. Das Umkomplizierte ist nie ganz das, was es zu sein scheint." - S. 104

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

The rook is my favorite piece. It's the one that you think you don't have to watch out for. It is straightforward. You keep your eye on the queen and the knights, and the bishop because they are the sneaky ones. But it's the rook that often gets you. The straightforward is never quite what it seems.

He doesn't look ill.' Dawn still had glitter on her face from wherever she had been the night before. The glitter troubled me. 'I'm sorry,' I said, weakly, wishing for a more visible illness.

Sometimes regrets aren't based on fact at all. Sometimes regrets are just . . .' She searched for the appropriate term