Pico Iyer Quotes

I write to make sense of things that don't make sense to me.

I think writing is really about a journey of understanding. So you take something that seems very far away, and the more you write about it, the more you travel into it, and you see it from within.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.

Writing is incredibly important to me as a way of handling the world, understanding how it works.

I was a little truth seeker as a child. I wanted more than anything to understand myself and also other people.

The older you get the more you understand what you're doing.

I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

All my work is always that exploration of human nature.

I think sometimes you need distance to reflect.

Many times I have written something, and after it was published, I understood what I was saying.

My life experience has made me realise what's important and what is not.

Each film has taught me something new - be it about myself, my craft, my profession, people.

I've seen a lot of things and I've experienced a lot of things.

You're always thinking, "What does that add up to?" You can't really get a handle on it. I was curious. I felt like it would be an interesting challenge for me to write down what I'd seen and done and learned - all the convolutions captured in one item that I could look at and get some grip on what the hell happened.

I think I'm always drawn to projects that help me understand something about myself.

Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.

Time and reflection change the sight little by little 'till we come to understand.

We are often prophets to others only because we are our own historians.

Then I obviously didn't understand what it all meant, but I do now.