Seeing And Being Seen Quotes & Sayings

My book was powerless. The hall was so narrow. I could not run away from you. If I stayed there facing you, it was not out of courage but out of fear, that is the truth - fear of seeing and fear of being seen. But my soul already saw the other truth. Only my soul can tell the story that began in this doorway, slightly to the left of my gaze. There is no other witness. My soul alone saw the struggle. — Helene Cixous

I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it.
I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America. — Kiese Laymon

He looked at me in a way that felt like being touched, like a blind man seeing with his fingers, mapping my bones and skin in his mind. I felt weirdly exposed. Seen.
"It's not what you think," he said.
"What do I think?"
"I'm not that good. I can't read minds."
Then read my body, I thought, but he only smiled.
"Tell me something." He leaned closer, his voice raspy at the edges, charred. "If you hate human connection so much, why come with us?"
Because I don't hate it. I hate how much I need it.
Because you're the ones I was waiting for. — Leah Raeder

Do not assume that people are seeing you. The more you can clarify, optimize, and engage your fans and strangers with branded marketing and merchandise, the better chance you have of being seen and then heard. — Loren Weisman

It is easy to make friends, but not so easy to keep them in the long term. You cancel a couple of arrangements because you are tired, or it seems too far to travel in traffic, and then next thing you know you have not seen somebody you considered a close friend in over a year. In the small town where I grew up, you saw the same people day in and day out for years. My mother was friends with the girls she went to school with until the day she died. I enjoyed the anonymous freedoms of the city, but now I wondered if I had enjoyed them enough to justify being lonely in my latter years. I missed seeing people every day, meeting old friends and making new ones. — Kate Kerrigan

Seeing yourself reflected on screen is a very important part of being human. It makes us feel less alone, it make us feel more connected to humanity. Women, gay men, and trans people for a long time have not seen themselves represented, so being able to show the complexities that we all have - just as complex stories as a heterosexual white male - is crucial for us to feel more human and have other people see us as human beings. — Marielle Heller

Being on that pitcher's mound, it's the one thing I'm really good at. The one thing I haven't fucked up. And when I'm on the field, everything else fades away. You know?" He turned to look at me, his eyes craving understanding.
I smiled and he continued. "It's like my mind is clear when I'm out there. It's not about my mom or my dad or the stupid shit I've done. It's about me, the ball, and the batter. It's the one place in the world where I feel like I'm in control. Like I have a say in what happens around me."
I stopped my head from nodding in agreement once I realized that I was doing it. "I feel that way when I'm taking pictures. Anything that I'm not seeing through my lens fades away in the background. And I get to frame my picture any way I choose. I get to dictate how it looks. What's in it. What isn't. Behind that lens I have complete control in how things are seen."
He smiled, his dimples indenting his cheeks. "You get it. — J. Sterling

It was like being alive twice, seeing the world twice, and the new vision came through the eyes of a small, curious, unstoppable being who had never seen it before. We had our own little mindfulness coach, reminding us that when all else fails us in this life we can love our own toes, or the velvet coolness of a dog's ear, or his downy fur. People told us how we would fall in love with our baby, but not how through him we would fall in love with everything else again too. — Susanne Antonetta

It's a challenge, for sure. My family is not seeing me at all, for probably the next six months, and they haven't seen me for the last year. I'm really blessed with a lot of great partners, including my writing staff. Being able to rely on the people around me has really helped out. — Veena Sud

The most serious thing, and the strangest, is that we are afraid to the point of panic, not so much of seeing ourselves as of being seen by ourselves. This is our root absurdity. What is behind this great fear? — Rene Daumal

I just want to say this. I love being a woman. I love playing a woman. I love being a whole and full woman. I am more than my parts, and we all are. And we all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing. We are full and beautiful women. And let us live in that. — Tracee Ellis Ross

The life of every man is in the Center of Time, for all were seen in the seeing of Meshe, and are in his eye. We are the pupils of his Eye ... Our doing is his Seeing: our being is his Knowing. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The memories seem to come in layers. For example, the first memory might be of incest; then they remember robes and candles; next they realize that their father or mother or both were present when they were being abused. Another layer will be the memory of seeing other people hurt and even killed. Then they remember having seen babies killed. Another layer is realizing that they participated in the sacrifices. One of the most painful memories may be that they even sacrificed their own baby. With each layer of memory comes another set of problems with which they must deal.
- Glenn L. Pace; "Ritualistic Child Abuse," memo — Glenn L. Pace

Nothing changes from one generation to another except the things seen and the things seen make that generation, that is to say nothing changes in people from one generation to another except the way of seeing and being seen. — Gertrude Stein

Often misconstrued, authenticity is not about being an open book, revealing every detail of yourself without rhyme or reason. It is simply the act of openly and courageously seeing what needs to be seen, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, and becoming that which you are intent on being. — Scott Edmund Miller

But filled with one of those unreasonable exultations which start generally from an unknown cause, and sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace, she walked without seeing. The night was encroaching upon the day. Her ears hummed with the tunes she had played the night before; she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and faster. She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees and the landscape appearing only as masses of green and blue, with an occasional space of differently coloured sky. Faces of people she had seen last night came before her; she heard their voices; she stopped singing, and began saying things over again or saying things differently, or inventing things that might have been said. The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress made it unusually exciting to stride thus alone. — Virginia Woolf

My earliest recollection is of coming upon some rabbit tracks in the backyard snow. I must have been three or so, but I had never seen a rabbit and can still recall the feeling of being completely captivated by the tracks: Someone had been here. And he left these prints. And he was alive. And he lived somewhere nearby, maybe even watching me at this very moment.
Four decades later, I do not need to be reminded that rabbits are often a nuisance to farmers and gardeners. My point is that when you look at a rabbit and can see only a pest, or vermin, or a meal, or a commodity, or a laboratory subject, you aren't seeing the rabbit anymore. You are seeing only yourself and the schemes and appetites we bring to the world
seeing, come to think of it, like an animal instead of as a moral being with moral vision. — Matthew Scully

In the wiretapping, despite all the momentum for a more assertive Congress, you're seeing Congress backing down, because there are many Republicans and even Democrats who are afraid of being seen as preventing the president from protecting the nation. — Bill Vaughan

But Jess was sliding breathlessly down into the waiting sky, so she couldn't find the words to tell TillyTilly that sisters was something about being held without hands, and the skin-flinch of seeing and simultaneously being seen. — Helen Oyeyemi

But does contemptus mean 'contempt,' dear? Of course not. That would imply arrogance, superiority, pride. So much that we call worldly is actually just flawed or being seen through a cracked lens. Imperfect or imperfectly understood. Who are we to judge as contemptible a thing or person whose existence God sustains? Everything, however imperfect, has its purpose.

No, Tony dear, contemptus mundi means 'detachment from the world,' seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis. Enduring or celebrating it, but never forgetting - even when it seems perfect and forever - that as the Bible says: 'all this shall pass like grass before the wind. — Tony Hendra

Meditation is the uncovering of this whole process of becoming and being - the negation of becoming in order to be. All this can be seen by a meditative mind at a glance, and this glance doesn't involve time at all. Seeing truth is not a matter of time; either you see or you don't see. The incapacity to see cannot become capable of seeing. So negation is the movement of meditation, and there is no way, no path, no system that can lead a chattering, shallow mind to the heights of bliss. The seeing of this instantly is the truth that frees the shallow mind from itself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

One of the greatest things that ever taught me a super lesson was when I seen a baby come out of my woman's womb. Seeing this war that could end with both lives being lost, or both lives being made, gave me an enlightenment of life itself. It sparked my whole mind to a whole other level of living. And if I never would have seen it, I never would have understood life. I never would have appreciated life. — RZA

In the time we spend reeling in confusion, grasping at straws trying to piece our egos together, we forget to acknowledge some things. Society created gender roles and categorizations and lifestyles and names and titles because we fear the unknown, especially when the unknown is us.
It's as though we're stranded in the middle of an ocean, but we were promised the current would bring us back ashore. We're given all we need on the life raft. As far as we can see, we're being led back, slowly. We don't know when we'll approach the shore, but all evidence points to the fact that we will. But we don't spend our time looking around, enjoying the view, seeing who came with us, and riding out the waves. We sit and panic about what we're doing and why we came here.
It doesn't matter where we started because we may never know. It matters where we're going, because that, we do. We begin and we end. We've seen one, so there's only one other option. — Brianna Wiest

People really do not change from one generation to another, as far back as we know history people are about the same as they were, they have had the same needs, the same desires, the same virtues and the same qualities, the same defects, indeed nothing changes from one generation to another except the things seen and the things seen make that generation, that is to say nothing changes in people from one generation to another except the way of seeing and being seen, the streets change, the way of being driven in the streets change, the buildings change, the comforts in the houses change, but the people from one generation to another do not change.

The creator in the arts is like all the rest of the people living, he is sensitive to the changes in the way of living and his is is inevitably influenced by the way each generation is living, the way each generation is being educated and the way they move about, all this creates the composition of that generation. — Gertrude Stein

The wind then became calmed in some degree: when, after sun-rise, we perceived that the mountain we had seen was in the air, and that we could see light between it and the sea. I was much astonished at this: but, seeing the sailors in the utmost perturbation, and bidding farewell to one another, I said, Pray what is the matter? They said, What we supposed to be a mountain, is really a Rokh,1 and if he sees us, we shall assuredly perish, there being now between us and him a distance of ten miles only. But God, in his goodness, gave us a good wind, and we steered our course in a direction from him, so that we saw no more of him; nor had we any knowledge of the particulars of his shape. — Ibn Battuta

Well, the coolest thing I have seen so far, in terms of, like, me being an astronaut and seeing something unusual, was the rendezvous, the docking of a Progress spaceship. — Kevin A. Ford

When you are secure in yourself, know what turns you on, and enjoy watching your partner watch you experience sexual pleasure, you have a highly novel relationship grounded in love. The experience of seeing and being seen fuels lust and desire. This is exactly the way you integrate healthy lust and love into your sex life. It's relational sex, not the old pornographic sex of past addictions. — Alexandra Katehakis

Here's something I bet you don't know:
every time someone writes a story about a dragon
a real dragon dies.
Something about seeing
and being seen
something about mirrors
that old tune about how a photograph
can take your whole soul. At the end
of this poem
I'm going to go out like electricity
in an ice storm. I've made peace with it. — Catherynne M Valente

Every time the phone rang, my heart jumped. Was it Alexander? And when it wasn't him my heart would break into a million pieces. It had been two longs days since I had seen my Gothic mate. I was so preoccupied with Alexander, dreaming of the next time we'd be together, nothing else mattered. I didn't wash the spot where his tender love lips had pressed against my flesh. I was acting like I was straight out of a Gidget movie! What had happened to me? I was losing my edge! For the first time in my life I was really afraid. Afraid of never seeing him again and afraid of being rejected. — Ellen Schreiber

As I drifted along with my bodiless invisibility, I felt myself more and more becoming an empty, floating shape, seeing without being seen and walking without the interference of those grosser creatures who shared my world. It was not an experience completely without interest or even pleasure. The clown's shibboleth of "here we are again" took on a new meaning for me as I felt myself a novitiate of a more rarified order of harlequinry. ("The Last Feast Of The Harlequin") — Thomas Ligotti

The difference between this painting and the others the late Rembrandt painted is the difference between seeing and being seen. That is, in this picture he sees himself seeing while also being seen, and no doubt it was only in the Baroque period with its penchant for mirrors within mirrors, the play within the play, staged scenes and a belief in the interdependence of all things, when moreover craftsmanship attained heights witnessed neither before nor since, that such a painting was possible. But it exists in our age, it sees for us. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Then she told me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad man left me. — Amy Tan

I think humans might be like butterflies; people die every day without many other people knowing about them, seeing their colors, hearing their stories ... and when humans are broken, they're like broken butterfly wings; suddenly there are so many beauties that are seen in different ways, so many thoughts and visions and possibilities that form, which couldn't form when the person wasn't broken! So it is not a very sad thing to be broken, after all! It's during the times of being broken, that you have all the opportunities to become things unforgettable! Just like the broken butterfly wing that I found, which has given me so many thoughts, in so many ways, has shown me so many words, and imaginations! But butterflies need to know, that it doesn't matter at all if the whole world saw their colors or not! But what matters is that they flew, they glided, they hovered, they saw, they felt, and they knew! And they loved the ones whom they flew with! And that is an existence worthwhile! — C. JoyBell C.

So this is Canada," I said, looking outside my car door.
"For the last time, it's not Canada," Sydney replied, rolling her eyes. "It's northern Michigan."
I glanced around, seeing nothing but enormous trees in every direction. Despite it being a late August afternoon, the temperature could've easily passed for something in autumn. Craning my head, I just barely caught a glimpse of gray waters beyond the trees to my right: Lake Superior, according to the map I'd seen.
"Maybe it's not Canada," I conceded. "But it's exactly how I always imagined Canada would look. Except I thought there'd be more hockey. — Richelle Mead

Every human being wants to be seen, really seen, by another human being, not as a statistic in some sociological study, not as a casualty of poverty, not as a victim of a corrupt social structure. We can start by seeing both what is and what can be. — Nancy Rue

The seen and seeing softly mutually strike Their glass barrier that arrests the sight. But the world's being hides in the volcanoes And the foul history pressed into its core; And to myself my being is my childhood And passion and entrails and the roots of senses; I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light. — Stephen Spender