Quotes About Ambiguity

Where the government has got it seriously wrong is to imagine that poetry is about right and wrong answers, that poetry has testable outcomes. It doesn't. Very nearly all poetry is full of ambiguity and suggestiveness.

I like the idea of being caught between things, always being a bit of an outsider, having an outside eye on things - almost like a Shakespearean fool.

I always had this crisis: where do I come from? I was never an insider, never an outsider; I was always in the middle. But it means I never have borders in my head.

I know there are no sure bets or overnight miracles.

We might do well to contain our elation at seeing the light at the end of the tunnel until we are certain it is not some guy on a motorcycle coming straight at us.

You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.

The most skillful teachers know how to tolerate the ambiguity of experimentation. They also know when to step back and pretend they're invisible. That's why, whenever I observe in a classroom, I like to measure the ratio of "teacher talk" to "student talk." When the ratio tips toward the students, it often means kids are testing their critical thinking skills. A noisier classroom is much harder to manage, but often more productive.

They walk the wire across the chasms of their own souls, looking down into the great depths as, step by step, they cross to the distant side. On occasion they've learned something by the time they get there, but not always, and usually not what they expect.

Eddie asks, So what next? And Jesus, his eyes dark but laced with a hint of mercy, the thorn scars just barely visible at his hairline, says, Damned if I know.

The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.

Excuse me, but can you be a little more vague?

The limits of binary thinking are spooky enough

As long as you remember that fighting evil doesn't necessarily make you good! Good and evil are each other's enemies, but they are often found close together.

What does he look like? Not big, not small, not short, not tall, not old not young, not dark nor blond. His eyes are the only thing that give him away; they're as mean as a snake's. We were all afraid of him. Sometimes we feared we might become as evil as him!

chasing someone and being chased at the same time. You look in both directions at once.

Según cómo se mire qué? —preguntó Jared. No estaba seguro de si aquella criatura le resultaba divertida o temible.

Sweet pulp and sour skin - Or was it sweet outside, and sour within?

How do you manage for money?' I asked. I was given two simultaneous replies of 'We get by' from Ian and 'Don't ask' from Neil. I favoured Ian's reply because it had less-sinister connotations. 'Don't ask' left open the possibility that they raised funds by selling hitch-hikers into slavery. I changed the subject.

People shouldn't trust artists and they shouldn't trust art. Part of the fun of art is that it invites you to interpret it.

There's tense applause. Some of the black guests bow; most aren't sure how to respond.

one of the governing impulses in any society is, and must be, a terror of indistinctness.

We quickly notice how very few metaphors Jane Austen uses...we can see that Jane Austen's works do seem to aim at establishing ' a single world of discourse' and that she is not at all concerned to 'join a plurality of worlds'. Such a 'plurality' could lead to a potentially uncontrollable proliferation of ambiguities and possible meanings, whereas the drive of her writing seems to aim at a 'single' sense ... Jane Austen aims at a total transparency...

Haze all clouding up in my mind in the daze of the why it could've never been.

Hun ser skygger hvor solen skinner og mørke i den klare dag.