Quotes About Ambiguity

Bulshytt: Speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said.

The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?

Sometimes there was no gap between joke and real.

The two lieutenants devote a good hour to following the instructions in that manual. The instructions are not that complicated, but Enoch Root keeps noticing syntactical ambiguities and wants to explore their ramifications. First this rattles Ethridge, then his emotions tend towards impatience and, finally, extreme pragmatism.

Empty boxes, old newspapers, a milk jug, and a wine bottle." "You're identifying the contents of the garbage bag?" "No dead cats. Or live ones." "Maybe it's a Schrödinger's Hefty bag." I

But, um, I kind of wondered if I could have your phone number, so I can call you when we're out of here.' She smiles and her cuts outline her face like a cat's whispers. 'Crafty.' 'I am a guy,' I say. 'And I hate boys,' she says. 'But a guy's different,' I say. 'Maybe a little,' she says.

dark matter is our frenemy.

In life, lots of things occupy two or more classifications

It's kind of a continuum…We used to think that they were two totally different things, and now we know that there's a gray area in between…

?wiat nie ma obowi?zku by? dla ciebie zrozumia?ym.

Wearing a leather vest and an Indiana Jones hat, Steve P. was equal parts Hell's Angel and Native American shaman. Rasputin was a strip club bouncer with mutton-chop sideburns who looked like a steroid-jacked Wolverine.

Mrs. Rahman. It was impossible to know whether Mokta

Phil doesn't say yes, but he doesn't really say no. He's willing to ruin a person's life in order to keep her from being angry at him.

No, certainly he didn't. Not actually. He couldn't, not very well, since he didn't know. But he would have. It amounts to the same thing. And I'm sure it was just as unpleasant.

circumlocution

realized that I still had feelings for Beth, so to keep my romantic options open when I saw her, I should say I was undecided about this job but seriously considering a blow job.

Everybody talks to me about 'P.M.s,'" complained Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to Inspector Fox on Monday afternoon, "and I never know whether they mean post-mortem or Prime Minister. Really, it's very difficult when you happen to be involved with both.

European sense. No one can predict how it will end because there is no precedent for it.

Rising to his feet he said, 'If the heir to the throne has been assassinated, well, first of all we know nothing for certain, and secondly, it doesn't concern us in the least.'…

a chaos so great and so obscure that nothing about it can be known'.

Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see

He was also perpetually developing configurations of straight lines that deceive the viewer in their apparent readability as plastic forms, with walls and openings, only to become something entirely different as we look at them. Physical impossibility in the guise of the plausible was his elixir.

It all made perfect sense, and at the same time, nothing seemed to make sense at all.