Philip Roth Quotes

The world only goes round by misunderstanding.

Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.

Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.

Characters are often revealed by the ways they misapprehend others.

The biggest misconception people have about me is that I'm stupid.

The problem I have with making an intelligent statement is that some people then think it's not an isolated occurrence.

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

People misinterpret what I say all the time: They think I'm being offensive, when really, I'm only being opinionated.

I'm surprised sometimes at how some of my actions are misinterpreted.

I like being misunderstood.

If you hear the question wrong, you will answer wrong.

But what if our intelligence is wrong?

Who hears wrong, replies wrong.

A lot of things get misinterpreted with me, I guess.

I think the most fundamental error we make is mistaking a noisy, anomalous event for the norm. This happens all the time - in the stock market, in reports of crime and natural disaster, etc. The fact is that big, noisy, anomalous events catch our attention because they're anomalous, which isn't a problem in and of itself.

When you fail to communicate, there are gray areas. And when there's gray areas, then bad things happen.

It doesn't really bother me if people misunderstand me. It's cool, but you can't do anything about it.

Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.

Sometimes you can see things happen right in front of your eyes and still jump to the wrong conclusions.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

The lucky person passes for a genius.

Things definitely got out of perspective.

Hitchcock loves to be misunderstood, because he has based his whole life around misunderstandings.