Quotes about understanding
page 12

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Variant: you might not understand but i gave you the best of me...
Source: The Best of Me

“Very well. I understand. Just… shut up!”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

“You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: He's a wallflower. You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Love is an act of faith & its face should always be covered in mystery. Every moment should be lived with feeling & emotion because if we try to decipher it & understand it, the magic disappears.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Spy

Love, Faith, Feeling

“We refuse to believe that which we don't understand.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

World, Law

“All the emails I get these days start with sorry but I've been so busy, and I don't understand how we can be so busy and then have nothing to say to each other.”

Jon McGregor book If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Source: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Business

“there's nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else.”

Brad Meltzer book The Inner Circle

Source: The Inner Circle

Life

“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As quoted in the essay "To Albert Einstein's Seventieth Birthday" by Arnold Sommerfeld, Albert Einstein : Philosopher-Scientist http://www.worldcat.org/title/albert-einstein-philosopher-scientist/oclc/311439 (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp (p. 102). The essay, originally published as "Zum Siebzigsten Geburtstag Albert Einsteins" in Deutsche Beiträge (Eine Zweimonatsschrift) http://www.worldcat.org/title/deutsche-beitrage-eine-zweimonatsschrift/oclc/183334232 Vol. III, No 2, 1949, was translated specifically for the book by Schilpp. <br class="br">1940s <br class="br">Variant: Since others have explained my theory, I can no longer understand it myself.

“Ah," said the magus, understanding at once. "I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again."
"Surely that's unlikely," said Sounis.
"I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us," said the magus.”

Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

Thinking

“Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Collected Stories

Life

“I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.”

William Saroyan book The Human Comedy

Source: The Human Comedy (1943)
Context: Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.

Life, People, World

“Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know.”

Umberto Eco book The Prague Cemetery

Source: The Prague Cemetery

“Intellectual understanding does not always bring visceral belief.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

“I think the important thing to remember is that all relationships benefit from a bit of breathing room. Especially friendships. It's only when you find yourself without the women who understand you that you realize there are very few women who will.”

Megan Crane (1973) American novelist

Source: Frenemies

Women, Friendship, Thinking

“It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Children, Water, Heart

“Some people don't understand that it is the nature of the eye to have seen forever, and the nature of the mind to recall anything that was ever known.”

Alice Walker book The Temple of My Familiar

Source: The Temple of My Familiar

People, Nature

“I guess I don't really understand you yet,' I said. 'I'm not all that smart. It takes me a while to understand things. But if I do have time, I will come to understand you -- better than anyone else in the world ever can.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

World, Time

“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

School, Solitude, For Men

“[I] don't think I was trying to kill myself. I just wanted to hurt, and understand exactly whay I was hurting. This made sense: you cut, you felt pain, period.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Pain, Thinking, Sense, Hurt

“There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Dependency

“All of us have theories about the world and about ourselves. We will go to great lengths to prove ourselves right because it keeps the world in our head coherent and understandable.”

Marya Hornbacher (1974) American journalist

World

“A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”
“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Love, Soul, Thinking, Time

“Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“I pretend to understand because I don't want anybody to be hurt”

Charles Bukowski book Hollywood

Source: Hollywood

Hurt

“No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Way, Childhood, Personality

“As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

“What you don't understand you can make mean anything.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Variant: What we don't understand we can make mean anything.
Source: Diary

“Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

Perfection

“Listen, my friend. He who loves understands.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Love

“What Jack didn't understand was that no matter where he went, the same asshole got off the plane.”

Stephen King book The Shining

Source: The Shining (1977)

“Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

“They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone.”

Celeste Ng book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

“Myrnin said softly. "And how is it that you do not understand that HERE, in THIS place, this girl belongs to me, not to you?”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Girl

“Gradually I came to realize that my understanding of women goes only as far as the pleasure is concerned.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Women, Pleasure

“I wish I could tell him I understand: the higher you raise your hopes, the farther you have to fall.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Hope

“Their false compassion is called compassion and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Falseness

“What organized dating sites fail to understand is that the people are far more interesting in what they don't say about themselves.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

People

“Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding…”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

Science

“I didn't understand why I needed help, because it seemed to me that youwear heavy boots when your dad dies, and if youwearing heavy boots, you need help.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Help

“Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

Source: The Bonehunters

Life, Death, God, Peace

“I'll never understand how a man can live his life
With his finger on the self-destruct button,
Holding it there day after day,
Blinded by an obsession to press it
But lacking the conviction to do even that.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

Life

“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.”

Milan Kundera book Encounter

Source: Encounter

Truth

“It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.”

Anna Wintour (1949) English editor-in-chief of American Vogue

Time

“I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”

Donald J. Trump book Trump: The Art of the Deal

As quoted in "Donald Trump has read a lot of books on China: 'I understand the Chinese mind'" http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/donald-trump-i-understand-the-chinese-mind.html, Los Angeles Times (3 May 2011), and in Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2015/08/24/playing-the-chinese-trump-card/ (August 2015) <br class="br">2010s, 2011 <br class="br">Source: The Art of the Deal

Money

“It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.”

Ann Beattie (1947) Short story writer, novelist, professor

Source: Walks with Men

People, Communication

“There are many words and definitions I have never lost. But some I am only just beginning to truly understand.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

“I realize that I will never fully understand the millions of bizarre ways that music brings people together.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

People, Music, Way

“If I could only reach out and touch the stars, I would know everything. I would understand.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Star

“It is quite clear that between love and understanding there is a very close link… He who loves understands, and he who understands loves. One who feels understood feels loved, and one who feels loved feels sure of being understood.”

Paul Tournier (1898–1986) Swiss physician and author, pastoral counsellor

Source: To Understand Each Other

Love, Feeling

“You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It's all there and you just have to find it.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

“What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

People, Feeling, Time

“Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying "Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Faith, Way, Universe

“You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

People

“I am not meant to be alone and without you who understands.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it—that makes no sense. What mycould never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Happiness, People, Sense, Suicide

“I told you. You don't love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Love, Cars, Singing, Heart

“The secret to not being afraid is to understand what scares you”

Deborah Wiles (1953) American children's writer

Source: Countdown

Secret

“No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Source: Theological-Political Treatise

“I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place.”

Howard Gardner (1943) American developmental psychologist

Howard Gardner (1983), "Multiple approaches to understanding," in: Charles M. Reigeluth (ed.) Instructional-design Theories and Models: A new paradigm of ..., Volume 2. p. 69-90

Children, World

“Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Life, Time