Quotes About Nuance

I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter.

There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. ... As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

The exclamation point is a loud party-goer, demanding attention. Overdone, it can be annoying.

We knew right off how to think of them but not precisely how to feel about them.

Wasn't that the way it always was? You didn't know, you couldn't tell, you just let it happen... Perhaps they didn't know themselves. Sometimes the line was very fine.

That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific—chair, eye, stone—but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out.

In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid.

You hope that when you're playing someone possibly unsympathetic that you can bring them something redeeming, something people can hang onto.

Look, there is a sort of old view about class which is a very simplistic view that we have got the working class, the middle class and the upper class, I think it is more complicated than that.

In films, the camera catches each nuance of expression in close ups. On the stage, it is less subtle, you have to act with your whole body.

With 'Street Fight,' it took an urban mayoral election and found lots of complexity in there. The same with 'Racing Dreams.' I wanted to show complexity within this world that most documentary people don't know anything about.

There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman.

the truth is seldom found in extremes. Central truths can be revolutionary if put to work.

In any work you do, you can be profound one minute, and then you be superficial the next, and you can be smart and insightful and then insipid. There can be room for all that.

I like how you can go back and watch David Lean and John Ford and see the influence that had on Steven Spielberg, especially David Lean, in the camerawork, and yet, you don't watch any Spielberg movie and think of David Lean. Once you're looking for it, you see it all, but it's not in your face.

I don't much believe in bumper sticker characterizations of foreign policy.

I didn't want to just do a show where my character stood out and other characters were flat or one-to-two-dimensional. I wanted everybody to have meat.

What I love about travel and shopping is seeing how different retailers in London, Paris, and New York interpret the same collection. I like to find the best store in town and take a good look because there will always be a nuance that you just can't get anywhere else.

Broadchurch' was all about shades of grey, both in characters and storytelling, and I wanted to see that through to the end.

I feel, in storytelling, people are so afraid that you won't get it unless you pound them over the head.

I purposely adopted a style in my storytelling wherein I don't have to explain everything or why the story is moving in a particular way.

What I love about 'The Good Wife' is that it's not straightforward.

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush's dog getting a book deal.

The culture of news is a culture without nuance.