Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker realizes they were the last to understand their own situation, or at least the last to know they knew.
In plain terms
I didn't know what was happening until I knew I knew.
What can you take from it?
Self-awareness often lags behind reality.

Where it applies

  • personal crisis
  • change
  • growth

Putting it to work

  • check your blind spots
  • accept reality

Questions to consider

  • When did you realize you knew?
  • What are you ignoring now?

Another view

It overlooks cases where knowledge is actively suppressed.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead.

    Permalink to quote #863
  2. She never touched me, at least not as she had before, not with the promise of decades of passion in out future. She knew, but I did not yet know

    Permalink to quote #865
  3. I feel like such a fool Honest people are the easiest to fool, Elisheba. I never occurred to you that they might be flattering you, because you don't lie

    Permalink to quote #862

Related quotes

  1. Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you - you do not even suspect that the day h…

    Alexander SolzhenitsynAlexander Solzhenitsyn quote #5
  2. Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

    Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht quote #16
  3. The traditional approach is from the periphery inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation, gradually to come upon that inner flower, that inner beaut…

    Jiddu KrishnamurtiJiddu Krishnamurti quote #18