Quotes About Clarity

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

'The Names' is a story about a woman who might feel that she's in a kind of maze. She's unable to find her way forward or out because she can't see the whole picture.

I think there are still unanswered questions about Benghazi. I think there are unanswered questions, and they could be easily answered. But I think they need to be answered.

I have to be clear with myself and very conscious of what I am trying to say. Misunderstandings will always take place; it's unavoidable.

In my worst moments, I think the biggest effect of 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' was to kill the happiness of people who had previously skipped through life, unaware of all the atrocities lurking in the world around them.

I find it difficult to stand up for what you are and what your essence is, and seeing that clearly can be an unbelievably hard thing to do.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it.

The mind of a general ought to resemble and be as clear as the field-glass of a telescope.

Hence the experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is never at a loss.

And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.

At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity.

Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.

My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

It seemed to Karina further proof that wartime was the only time the world became as simple and carnivorously liberating as it must exist at all times in men's minds.

From defilement can come much wisdom

A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.

I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say - I love you

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

Do not encumber your mind with useless thoughts. What good does it do to brood on the past or anticipate the future? Remain in the simplicity of the present moment.

Saying nothing... sometimes says the most.