Quotes about Perception

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.

In any interview, you do say more or less than you mean.

You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer — its dust and lowering skies.

No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity.

Every sentence, every word, was new to them and they listened to what he said like bright-eyed ravens, trembling in their eagerness to catch & interpret every sound in the universe.

A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective; they are that.

It was lovely. Not to be stared at, not seen, but being pulled into view by the interested, uncritical eyes of the other.

when the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier -- that only birds and planes could fly -- he lost all interest in himself.

Whitefolks said he was a witch doctor, but they said that so they wouldn't have to say he was smart. A hunter's hunter that's what he was. Smart as they come. Taught me two lessons I lived by all my life. One was the secret of kindness from white people —they had to pity a thing before they could like it. The other--- oh well, I forgot it." Joe Trace

She talked like that. But I understood what she meant. About having another you inside that isn't anything like you. Dorcas and I used to make up love scenes and describe them to each other. It was fun and a little smutty. Something about it bothered me, though. Not the loving stuff, but the picture I had of myself when I did it. Nothing like me. I say myself as somebody I'd seen in a picture show or a magazine. Then it would work. If I pictured myself the way I am it seemed wrong.

Not know it was hard;knowing it was harder