The aphorism "you can't judge a book by its cover" warns against superficial assessment. A beautiful cover might contain poorly written content; an ugly cover might hide masterpiece. The principle extends to people, situations, any phenomena: appearance dissociates from substance. The aphorism asserts that proper judgment requires depth, reading beyond surfaces.

Yet covers encode information. Designers deliberately create visual signals indicating genre, quality, intended audience. A cover isn't merely decorative; it's communicative. The aphorism oversimplifies by suggesting that covers are unreliable. In fact, covers are extremely reliable—they accurately convey what designers intended. The problem is that designer intent might not match content quality.

The Norris fact claims transcendence of this limitation: he can judge books by covers, seeing through design signals into actual substance. This suggests a form of perception that bypasses normal sensory channels—seeing through to essential truth rather than constructed appearance. The meme invokes wisdom as a perceptual faculty that penetrates surfaces. It's a claim about enlightenment disguised as a joke.