Quotes about Perception

What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.

Who would have guessed you'd be crying over that old hay bag." But that wasn't it at all, Elinor saw that from the look on his face when he turned to her. That was the attachment, that was the way he held on to her.

You think terrible things can't happen because they've never happened to you, but they're out there, all the time, every day. They happen to someone.

There are sick people everywhere, in wheelchairs and on benches. Shelby is embarrassed to be so healthy.

I thought perhaps it was more important to listen than to be heard.

Was it possible to know anyone, truly?

Eddie had come to understand that what a man saw and what actually existed in the natural world often were contradictory. The human eye was not capable of true sight, for it was constrained by its own humanness, clouded by regret, and opinion, and faith.

I could tell people anything I wanted to and whatever I told them, that would be the truth as far as they were concerned. Whoever I said I was, well, then that's who I'd be.

As long as she lives she will never figure out why it is that some boys refuse to see that somebody loves them.

I do not know if he had a name, but I called him North, an appellation I think Beck would have approved of, for it was the name the Dutch called the Hudson River when they first came here, when men set to changing the world in their image, and gave all the wild things their own names.

The truth frightens people because it isn't stable. It shifts every day.

Close your eyes and listen, such people advised, then walk twenty paces farther than you thought necessary. Just when you're certain you've lost your way completely, you'll be there. Open your eyes.