Quotes About Perception

Nice tights," I snorted. Or I tried to snort, anyway. I'm not exactly sure how, though people in books are always doing it.

And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love.

It was hard to imagine him sneaking around and leaving a rose on anyone's doormat, but I guess boys will surprise you sometimes.

Many of the books on my list are, in my opinion, amazing. Some I didn't like. But I give them all five stars, because stars make people - including me -- happy.

Life is where you sleep and what you see when you wake up in the morning, and who you tell about your weird dream, and what you eat for breakfast and who you eat it with.

Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore. She doesn't mean that it's a real veil. And it isn't about magic, or some idea that maybe God is looking right at you, or an angel is sitting next to you, or anything like that. Mom doesn't think in those ways. It's just her way of saying that most of the time, people get distracted by little stuff and ignore the big stuff.

People don't want to think about it.' 'I can see why,' I said. 'It makes my head hurt.' 'Still, you did better than most people. You're a pretty smart kid.' I rolled my eyes. 'Gee, thanks.

He nodded like he felt sorry for me and my stupid brain. 'I think that's probably because of your common sense. You can't accept the idea of arriving before you leave, the idea that every moment is happening at the same time, that it's us who are moving—' Enough was enough.

It was at that moment, standing next to her, that I figured out the truth. The truth was that Mom saw it too: the peeling paint, the cigarette butts on the stairs, everything. It soaked into me like water into sand, fast and heavy-making. But I still couldn't apologise for what I'd said. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I couldn't even smile at her.

But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore.

Her lids tremble and her eyeballs look like they might disappear into her head.

Life was anything but fast, in your opinion. If it went any more slowly, time would probably start to run backward.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

She complained there was no 'café au lait'-colored construction paper for her skin, or 'sixty-percent-cacao-chocolate' color for her eyes. I remember staring at her while these words came out of her mouth, and thinking, Your skin is light brown. Your eyes are dark brown. Why don't you just use brown, you idiot? Jay Stringer didn't complain about the paper, and neither did any of the other ten kids using brown.

She should have known better than to entertain such thoughts, she told herself later. She knew how powerful telepathy could be, conjuring or connecting with someone else's thought waves. It might not be scientific, but she, like most people, knew how real it was, from direct experience. When her landline rang, at ten minutes to nine, some part of her know instantly who it wa.

Sex can look like love if you don't know what love looks like.

It seems to me, that this, too, is how memory works. What we remember of what was done to us shapes our view, molds us, sets our stance. But what we remember is past, it no longer exists, and yet we hold on to it, live by it, surrender so much control to it. What do we become when we put down the scripts written by history and memory, when each person before us can be seen free of the cultural or personal narrative we've inherited or devised? When we, ourselves, can taste that freedom.

There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers.

Now different races and nationalities cherish different ideals of society that stink in each other's nostrils with an offensiveness beyond the power of any but the most monstrous private deed.

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself

It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.

There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.