Karen Salmansohn Quotes

Things are not always as they seem; the first appearance deceives many.

It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

The biggest misconception about me is that people seem to think that I want it all and that I had it all, and I walked away from having it all. That was never part of it. I never wanted it all.

I used to believe that if I could do certain things - write a book or be a successful musician - that I'd be transformed into a happy person, but it doesn't work that way.

I grew up poor and used to look at people in big houses and thought they had everything. Then, later on, I looked at models in magazines and thought they had it all. When you have the ability to live that life, to some extent you find out that they don't have any magic cure for everything.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

There are many people in the world who feel that if only they had a bigger car, a nicer house, better vacations, a more understanding boss, or a more interesting partner, then their life would work. We all go through that one. Slowly we wear out most of our 'if onlies.'

Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is.

That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.

Don't let the Disney princess hair fool you.

Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmith.

It would be a mistake to think something is wonderful just because it looks great.

What Western society teaches us is that if you get enough money, power, and beautiful people to have sex with, that's going to bring you happiness. That's what every commercial, every magazine, music, movie teaches us. That's a fallacy.

Most people think glamor is happiness.

You just want fame so bad. You want success so bad. You just believe anybody who conjures up a pretty contract and they're telling you all these sweet nothings I guess.

I'm not trying to make everything this fantasy world about how I'm living this lavish life that I'm not really living.

It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.

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 refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are too easily exaggerated, and even when they are true, they always mean less than they seem to.

If ignorance were enough to make things not exist, the world would be more like a lot of people think it is. But it's not. And it's not.

It's horrible when people are only interested in buying labels, because it doesn't bring them the happiness they think it will.

I worry about making work more important than what I know to be the truth. Throughout all areas of life, we're told how to look, how to act, what to speak, what to wear, what we should have and other people don't have, and we know none of that means anything. Yet these other messages never stop coming.

First appearance deceives many.

I realize that nothing's as it seems.