Lorrie Moore Quotes

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.

Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.

I think the purpose of the writer is to help us see. The writer is someone who can perhaps have the joy of helping others see.

I have a feeling that books are a lot like people - they change as you age, so that some books that you hated in high school will strike you with the force of a revelation when you're older.

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.

I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it's more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.

Age, like distance lends a double charm.

Everything is beautiful, all that matters is to be able to interpret.

People who do not see the terrible things therefore do not see the beautiful things, either.

Art teaches you the philosophy of life, and if you can't learn it from art, you can't learn it at all. It shows you that there is no perfection. There is light, and there is shadow. Everything is in half tint.

To love beauty is to see light.

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.

The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.

This time next year,—this time ten years,—this time one hundred years,—probably it will be just as easy as we think it is to understand that glass of water, which now seems so plain and simple. I cannot doubt but that these things, which now seem to us so mysterious, will be no mysteries at all; that the scales will fall from our eyes; that we shall learn to look on things in a different way—when that which is now a difficulty will be the only commonsense and intelligible way of looking at the subject

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

I think my life has been transformed by the ability to take things that exist in the world and look at them more closely. I think that's what art does at its best: it allows us to slow down.

Light itself is a revelation.

I want people to treasure light.

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Everything is surprising, rightly seen.

It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles.

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.