Quotes about Perception

It is one of the great ironies of our time that those who pass for "black leaders" are so vocal about every perceived racial slight, and yet are not only silent—but even supportive—of the most overt and destructive attack on black Americans: abortion on demand.

T]oday some people continue to view themselves as victims because of the historical suffering of their group and because it is easy and comforting to do so. And this renders happiness virtually impossible. First…perceiving yourself as a victim makes you unhappy. Second, it makes you permanently angry, which further guarantees unhappiness. Third, it enables you to avoid confronting whatever it is that is really making you unhappy.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.

If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.

Intelligence is so damn rare and the people who have it often have such a bad time with it that they get bitter or propagandistic and then it's not much use.

Remember everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong.

The world was not wheeling anymore. It was just very clear and bright and inclined to blur at the edges.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war.

I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing what you really felt, rather that what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things which produced the emotion that you experienced...

During the night two porpoises came around the boat and he could hear them rolling and blowing. He could tell the difference between the blowing noise the male made and the sighing blow of the female. 'They are good,' he said. 'They play and make jokes and love one another. They are our brothers like the flying fish.