Alexi Zentner Quotes

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

Before you attempt to set things right, make sure you see things right.

I think writing is really about a journey of understanding. So you take something that seems very far away, and the more you write about it, the more you travel into it, and you see it from within.

The last thing you know about yourself is your effect.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.

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

I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.

The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives.

Writing is incredibly important to me as a way of handling the world, understanding how it works.

I wanted to write about relationships. But I didn't feel I had the experience to sing about them in a deep way. Studying psychology helped me out in terms of my understanding. I still look through my old textbooks when I'm in need of inspiration.

I'm not that guy who thinks I have all the answers. Writing is a means of communicating, and if enough people say, 'I don't get it,' it's worth looking at.

Since I've written many of my books from a less-than-sympathetic viewpoint, I think that being able to see things from all sides is a useful talent.

To be a writer is to connect and to play and to attempt to see clearly and understand. It astounds me regularly that feeling things deeply and writing them down is basically my job description.

Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

Sometimes you lose sight of what's going on around you.

Of course I live in my time, and I'm really curious. But, at the same time, I don't think it has a direct impact on my work.

Writing is how I find out what I believe and what I care most deeply about. It's how I sort through the mess of daily experience and try to make sense of it - by stepping out of it for a while. Writing is how I train a searchlight into the darker corners of my self and the world, as I'm sure I'd never do otherwise.

I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

In addition to giving comfort and joy, art also has the miraculous ability to let us live in other men's skins, to test our perceptions and beliefs against theirs, and perhaps to be changed as a result. It does this by portraying the world creatively, heightening our perception and enriching our understanding of things as they are.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.