Quotes about Perception

We are sa blind as we want to be

The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.

For centuries we had probed their faces, the angles of their bodies, the sounds of their voices and even their odors. Often our survival had depended upon the accurate reading of a white man's chuckle or the disdainful wave of a white woman's hand. Whites, on the other hand, always knew that no serious penalty threatened them if they misunderstood blacks. Whites were safely isolated from our concerns.

When someone shows you who they are, the first time, believe them Maya Angelou

When people show you who they are believe them the first time

We are only as blind as we want to be

Knowing Momma, I knew that I never knew Momma.

I read more than ever, and wished my soul that I had been born a boy. Horatio Alger was the greatest writer in the world. His heroes were always good, always won, and were always boys. I could have developed the first two virtues, but becoming a boy was sure to be difficult, if not impossible.

We had expected three cots in our room, but found one large lumpy bed, a very worn carpet and a single overhead light. "You mean this is what these people got out of their revolution?" Martha daintily picked her way around the room. "Someone should tell them that they're about due for another." She wrinkled her pretty face in distaste. Ethel

My eyes absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

But they talked, and from the side of the building where I waited for the ground to open up and swallow me, I heard the soft-voiced Mrs. Flowers and the textured voice of my grandmother merging and melting.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.