It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

[shootingstar]

(Mrs Elm speaking) 'We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it. "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." '
(Nora speaking) 'You know Thoreau?'
'Of course. If you do.'
'The thing is, I don't know what I regret any more.'
''Okay, well, let's see. You say that I am just a perception. Then why did you perceive me? Why am I - Mrs Elm - the person you see?'
'I don't know. Because you were someone I trusted. You were kind to me.'
'Kindness is a strong force.'
'And rare.'

(The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, episode Lost in the Library)

I think that's a crucial point of the novel. Do you know Thoreau? I surmise the quote "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see" was written by Henry David Thoreau, right? However, what does that mean? Matt Haig is using the words "perceive", "perception" and the word "see" as well. What does Thoreau want to express by the sentence "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see"? What is the difference between "look at" and "see" in this context? In which way does "perceive" differ from "see" in this context? What does Matt Haig intend to express by using the verbs "perceive" and "see" in different ways?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's all about perception. A friend and I might look at the same mountain (for example). I might see a tall rock with some snow on the top and briefly wonder if there are any mountain goats up there. My friend might see an example of how incredible nature is, how it represents millions of years of shifting land, erosion etc, an opportunity to go climbing with her friends and possible loads of other things I don't see.

 

[Annabel Lee]

I surmise the quote "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see" was written by Henry David Thoreau, right?

Many people seem to believe that Thoreau wrote that. What he actually wrote appears to be a bit different. The following is from a journal entry of his in 1851. It ends with a sentence that comes close to the fantasy quotation you have found. I am quoting extensively from the surrounding context, because it seems to me to be key to the meaning, which I take to be that the important things of observation are the larger meanings perceived, not mere aggregates of factual details.

". . . . I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself. It is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. The moonlight is more favorable to meditation than sunlight.​

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"The sun lights this world from without, shines in at a window, but the moon is like a lamp within an apartment. It shines for us. The stars themselves make a more visible, and hence a nearer and more domestic, roof at night. Nature broods us, and has not left our germs of thought to be hatched by the sun. We feel her heat and see her body darkening over us. Our thoughts are not dissipated, but come back to us like an echo.​

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"The different kinds of moonlight are infinite. This is not a night for contrasts of light and shade, but a faint diffused light in which there is light enough to travel, and that is all.​

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"A road (the Corner road) that passes over the height of land between heaven and earth, separating those streams which flow earthward from those which flow heavenward.​

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"Ah, what a poor, dry compilation is the 'Annual of Scientific Discovery!' I trust that observations are made during the year which are not chronicled there,—that some mortal may have caught a glimpse of Nature in some corner of the earth during the year 1851. One sentence of perennial poetry would make me forget, would atone for, volumes of mere science. The astronomer is as blind to the significant phenomena, or the significance of phenomena, as the wood-sawyer who wears glasses to defend his eyes from sawdust. The question is not what you look at, but what you see" (source). ​

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-Henry David Thoreau​