#perspective

The forest stretched on seemingly forever with the most monotonous predictability, each tree just like the next - trunk, branches, leaves; trunk, branches, leaves. Of course a tree would have taken a different view of the matter. We all tend to see the way others are alike and how we differ, and it's probably just as well we do, since that prevents a great deal of confusion. But perhaps we should remind ourselves from time to time that ours is a very partial view, and that the world is full of a great deal more variety than we ever manage to take in. ↗

— Thomas M. Disch

#life #perspective #view #life

It would mark the end of a year that he might look back on as hands, a pivot between two lines. Or not: maybe enough time, would pass that eventually he would look back on his life, all of it, as a series of events both logical and continuous. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#perspective #time #life

Sophie has a gift," she said. "She has the Sight. She can see what others do not. In her old life she often wondered if she was mad. Now she knows that she is not mad but special. There, she was only a parlor maid, who would likely have lost her position once her looks had faded. Now she is a valued member of our household, a gifted girl with much to contribute. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#maid #perspective #sight #value #life

[Writing about themselves] gives them wings, so that they can rise above the confounding maze of their lives and, from that perspective, begin to see the patterns and dead ends of their pasts, and a way out. That's the funny thing about mazes; what's baffling on the ground begins to make sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself. ↗

— Wally Lamb

#perspective #writing-life #funny

If you love yourself the most at your happiest moments, there is no reason not to be fond of who you are in the dark. ↗

— Ashly Lorenzana

#happiness #love #perspective #self-awareness #love

Mountains, according to the angle of view, the season, the time of day, the beholder's frame of mind, or any one thing, can effectively change their appearance. Thus, it is essential to recognize that we can never know more than one side, one small aspect of a mountain. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#mountains #perspective #change

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. ↗

— Henry Miller

#eternity

Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it." [Q&A with Larry McCaffery, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2] ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#darkness #fiction #human #humanity #mankind

I certainly don't think you need to be famous to want to leave a legacy, but when you are famous, it's even more likely that your child will get the wrong perspective on your life if you die prematurely. ↗

— Shania Twain

#child #die #even #famous #get

If you're religious, it gives you a perspective. ↗

— Martha Beck

#perspective #religious #you