Paul Auster Quotes

Things are not always as they seem.

Everything is more complicated than it looks to most people.

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.

Belief and seeing: They are both often wrong.

I often tend to think that things are not what they seem.

Did you ever think that maybe what you see isn't really what's true?

Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth,' said his cousin. 'But we seem to have no other.

You think the shadow is the substance.

Your mistake was not in imagining things you could not know—that is, after all, what imagination is for. Rather, your mistake was in unthinkingly treating what you imagined as though it were an accurate representation of the facts.

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

I realize that nothing's as it seems.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

It is always dangerous to underestimate anybody.

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.

It is quite possible we may have formed entirely erroneous ideas of what we actually see. The greenish gray patches may not be seas at all, nor the ruddy continents, solid land. Neither may the obscuring patches be clouds of vapor.

It's so easy for us to misperceive and see the things in others that we want to see. And, when we're wrong, and often we're dead wrong, we miss the truth.

Look! Don't be deceived by appearances - men and things are not what they seem. All who are not on the rock are in the sea!

Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.

Appearances frequently deceive us, and what at first sight carries with it the face of good proves to be a real evil, whilst an apparent evil oftentimes conceals an extraordinary good

Beware, as long as you live, of judging people by appearances.

The 'Raining Gold' video naturally took on one of the messages behind the song, which is you should never assume anything about someone or a situation just because it looks a certain way on the surface.

I don't like making comparisons. You might say one slight thing, find yourself misinterpreted, and suddenly you're in trouble.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

I feel that one of the most important lessons that can be learned is that what we "see" may be different than what is actually in front of us.