Quotes About Nuance

We like things to be black or white, tall or short, here or there. We like to consider two sides to every story. Unfortunately, there aren't always two sides. Sometimes there's only one; more often, there are multitudes. Many facets on the stone. Nooks and crannies in abundance. Things are usually not either black or white, but multicolored. —Barry Leiba, "Faulty Logic: False Dichotomy

Nothing beautiful can be summarized.

All the best movies are the ones that are cut from a more middle ground.

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

Es beweist nichts; ist jeder Beweiskraft entzogen durch das Vorteile-Nachteile-Denken, das böseste der Lebensprinzipien. Alles hat nun einmal seine Vor- und Nachteile, und schon wird das Unzumutbare zumutbar - als Nachteil der wiederum nichts als eine notwendige Eigentheit jedes Vorteils ist.

You could of heard a spider sip a breath.

You're in a world full of color and you want to see it in black and white.

Simple is never that simple.

As we sometimes also say about elements of fashion and etiquette, the way you use English "makes a statement" or "sends a message"—even though these statements/messages often have nothing to do with the actual information you're trying to communicate.

Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.

Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.

I mean, what if love isn't a yes-or-no question? It's not either you're in love or you're not.

It was like seeing someone who wore a striped tie or parted his hair on the left — a detail, but not a telling one.

Life is complex, conceptually dominated by binaries but never wholly contained by them.

C]haracter occurs with the lightest of brushstrokes. Naturally, it can be destroyed lightly, too.

The actors I admire are character actors.

I admire an actor that can do a lot with doing nothing really, for the most part. I like doing a lot by doing so little.

There's light and dark in all things, you know?

Man sieht, daß sich in allen Schichten der Gesellschaft die Bräuche gleichen und nur in der Art, dem Äußerlichen und der Nuance verschieden sind. Auch die große Gesellschaft hat ihr Rotwelsch; aber dieses Rotwelsch heißt ›der Stil‹.

Mingle some brief folly with your wisdom.

Do you ask 'Nu' of? Or do you ask, transitively? 'Nu?' he asked. And is it even a question in the accepted sense? 'Nu,' he said. Would that have been better? Nu, meaning how are things with you, but also I know how things are with you.

Is this a Kurdish thing?' 'What?' 'Being deliberately contradictory?

There's an insult buried in there somewhere, but I can't quite see it.

To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.