Quotes About Perception

In 1985 I'd never seen a mullet before, had no idea what a mullet was, what it was called, or why someone might choose to endure such a thing except for the simple pleasure that comes from having two haircuts on one head. All I knew was that it looked monumentally stupid.

Ms. Price smiled, but it was more indulgent than warm, the kind of smile used only by people who have to work hard at appearing nonthreatening.

Despite breaking into my room, Steve seemed like a pretty decent lizard guy.

Sometimes you make your mistakes with your eyes wide open.

Needless to say, it was inconceivable that I would be welome in, let alone invited to, their home. It was as well, then, that I did not limit myself only to those places where people might wish me to be.

You will act not on what your eyes and ears show you, but on what your mind thinks probable.

The Arab progeny here have scanty beards, and many grow to a very great height—tall, gaunt savages; while the Muscatees have prominent nose-bridges, good beards, and are polite and hospitable. I wish I had some of the assurance possessed by others, but I am oppressed with the apprehension that after all it may turn out that I have been following the Congo; and who would risk being put into a cannibal pot, and converted into black man for it?

I overhear the Manyuema telling each other that I am the "good one." I have no slaves, and I owe this character to the propagation of a good name by the slaves of Zanzibar, who are anything but good themselves. I

It shows us that it is never wise to turn an entirely deaf ear when the report of a disaster comes to hand, because in this instance the main facts were conveyed across country, striking the great arterial caravan route at Unyanyembé, and getting at once into a channel that would ensure the intelligence reaching Zanzibar. On the other hand, false reports never lag on their journey:—how often has Livingstone been killed in former years!

Social psychologists confirm that we are likely to perceive people outside our own community as more alike than those within it. We perceive members of our own group as individuals, but see other groups as more or less homogenous (psychologists call this the "outgroup homogeneity bias").

We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us. Hence … in poetry … trees, mountains, and streams are personified, and the inanimate parts of nature acquire sentiment and passion.

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

We are fooled by the winners because the winners can rewrite history.

What do we mean - it is a common term of praise - when we say that a book is "original"? Not, usually, that the writer has invented something without precedent, but that she has made us "perceive" what we already, in a conceptual sense, "know", by deviating from the conventional, habitual ways of representing reality. Defamiliarization, in short, is another word for "originality". I shall have recourse to it again in these glances at the art of fiction.

Every decoding is another encoding.

I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers. I've always said that if you have a name for something, like 'cut' or 'bruise,' people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don't know what it is, it can be very beautiful.

I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.

We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.

I learned that just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force--a wild pain and decay--also accompanies everything.

My cow is not pretty, but it is pretty to me.

Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.

Beauty is in the adaptations of the beholder. —DONALD SYMONS, "What Do Men Want?

Online pornography allows individuals to explore creative sexual possibilities they never knew existed but also creates entirely unrealistic expectations for real life sexual interactions.

Men need to understand the sexual over-perception bias that afflicts their mating minds. They should know that, most of the time, the women smiling at them are merely being friendly or polite, not signaling sexual interest.