Jeanette Winterson Quotes

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

Familiarity can blind too.

My philosophy is familiarity breeds contempt.

Oh, there's nothing like getting used to things.

Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar.

The mind becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them, and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for things it sees all the time.

Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment.

When something is universal enough in our everyday lives, we take it for granted to the point of forgetting it exists.

Human inertia makes the everyday environment, the furniture, as it were, appear to be a given.

The more often we see the things around us - even the beautiful and wonderful things - the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds - even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.

If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive.

I don't get hyped when I see stars now because it's like second nature to me.

I feel like, the more you hang around, the more you're forgotten. It doesn't matter how good you are.

When something is working well, it becomes too easy to let things run themselves.

I've been here for 19 years, so West Ham fans are bored with seeing me. It's like my wife, who changes the wallpaper every three years because she gets tired of it.

Everything becomes too normal after a while.

The only thing that should astonish us is that anything can yet astonish us.

Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

Surely people should eventually cease to be surprised at anything? And yet they continue to be.

There 's nothing like being used to a thing.

Familiar things are a comfort to us all.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is.

Sometimes people in search of a better fishing hole can't see the body of water in front of them.

That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.