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"The first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time."
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Exlpore more Understanding quotes
"This deliberate focus and sensitivity allow you to "put yourself in another person's shoes and walk around a while" to better understand where they are coming from and what they are all about."
"It is called understanding when one accepts other's talks of wisdom; but, where is the wisdom filled talk in this era?"
"It's frustrating when our best efforts to help people fail. But if we could see life through their weary eyes and experience their trials with the same frayed emotions, we might understand why."
"We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves."
"No poet can know what his poem is going to be like until he has written it."
"But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and no truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words."
"I pray for sufficient wisdom to understand that wisdom apart from God is the stuff of opinion tainted by the rot of bias. And if I am somehow apt to confuse such rubbish with wisdom, I will think myself wise but find myself living in a landfill."
"We may feel in control, but we never truly are unless we understand people. Controlling our environment is no longer about blocking the wind, it's about knowing why the serving lady was crying last night, or why a particular guard always loses at cards."
"My brother taught me that there is a difference between being a hater and being ignorant. Being a hater implies you understand the principle in question, while being ignorant implies that you do not understand the principle in question, and therefore, have no right to critique."
Explore more quotes by Salman Rushdie
"There are those of us who learn to live completely in the moment. For such people the Past vanishes and the future loses meaning. There is only the Present, which means that two of the three Aalim are surplus to requirements. And then there are those of us who are trapped in yesterdays, in the memory of a lost love, or a childhood home, or a dreadful crime. And some people live only for a better tomorrow; for them the past ceases to exist."
"Fury...sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal....drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths."
"Human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions."
"Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory."
"What Rushdie took away from reading Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum: Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be ruthless. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping like sand, through our fingers."
"What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry."
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