Alice Oswald Quotes

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

As a writer, it's a great narrative tool to have that character who is slightly detached but at the same time observant of his reality, because I think that's pretty much what being a writer is - being there, watching and internalizing.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

I wrote my first play at the age of 10, 55 years ago, and I've always found it a fantastic relief to imagine I know what things would be like from the point of view of other individuals and to send out signals from where I actually am not. Playwrights never need to write from the place where they are.

Like everybody, I've had a lot of pain in my life and I'm a work in progress. You must have a true desire to see the world from a different point of view, and that comes with growing up.

One of the great pleasures of acting is surrendering to someone else's point of view of the world - living inside a character and a story that never would have come out of your mind or heart.

It absolutely helped - to write the father in both 'Juicy' and 'Beasts,' I had to see the whole story from his point of view. All of a sudden I understood more of what my own father must be going through - the fear, the frustration, the anger... the hope that he'll leave a legacy.

I've learned over the years that people are human and have mood swings, regardless of how talented they are. Today, I'm looking at life from a realistic point of view instead of the way I would want things to be.

I don't want to draw from my own experiences in life. I first like to become the character and then think from her point of view.

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: "What is his point of reference here?" But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen.

What that’s allowed me to do is have a vantage point about my own life that's accessible to people still. I could see a guy walking down the street and be like, Even though I'm famous, I got more in common with this guy than, like, Brad Pitt.

Every time you go into a movie, you go into the point of view of who it is about.

The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.

The ability to understand the cause of your own suffering gives you the ability to understand ours.

When I count other people's blessings I lose sight of mine.

When I was 40, I used to wonder what people thought of me. Now I wonder what I think of them.

Next time you're about to judge someone, attempt to understand them instead.

A beetle may or may not be inferior to a man - the matter awaits demonstration; but if he were inferior by ten thousand fathoms, the fact remains that there is probably a beetle view of things of which a man is entirely ignorant. If he wishes to conceive that point of view, he will scarcely reach it by persistently revelling in the fact that he is not a beetle.

So many times, we take things to heart and that eats us up, and we think it over and over again with work and our personal life. But most of the time, it is not personal. It may have nothing to do with you but, instead, what the other person is going through in their life.

As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?

In theory we understand people, but in practice we can't put up with them, I thought, deal with them for the most part reluctantly and always treat them from our point of view. We should observe and treat people not from our point of view but from all angles, I thought, associate with them in such a way that we can say we associate with them so to speak in a completely unbiased way, which however isn't possible, since we actually are always biased against everybody.

Maybe my life isn't great. We don't have all the answers. Look at it from my side.

My feelings are Yevgeny Kafelnikov should take his prize money when he is done here and go and buy some perspective.

Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.