Quotes About Clarity

Isolation is not a drawback to those who understand that isolation is the point.

The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.

I'm at that certain stage in a night of drinking and talking when I see things clearly through a small opening, a window in space.

Writing is an organized way of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write them.

People sense things that are invisible. But when something's staring you right in the face, that's when you miss it completely.

Is it raining," I said, "or isn't it?

I was a kid and a little pedantic but I still maintain I had a point.

Because we are afraid to ask for clarification, we make assumptions, and believe we are right about the assumptions; then we defend our assumptions and try to make someone else wrong. It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption, because assumptions set us up for suffering.

Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion.

Las cosas importantes a observar deben ser visibles y estar señaladas con claridad; los resultados de cada acto deben ser inmediatamente evidentes.

the first edition of this book, then called POET, The Psychology of Everyday Things, I started with these lines: "This is the book I always wanted to write, except I didn't know it." Today I do know it, so I simply say, "This is the book I always wanted to write.

Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding. Discoverability: Is it possible to even figure out what actions are possible and where and how to perform them? Understanding: What does it all mean? How is the product supposed to be used? What do all the different controls and settings mean?

We can see what is in front of us, but not what is behind, just as we can remember what happened in the past, but we can't remember the future. Not only that, but we can remember recent events much more clearly than long past events, captured neatly by the visual metaphor in which the past lines up before us, the most recent events being closest so that they clearly perceived (remembered), with long/past events far in the distance, remembered and perceived with difficulty.

If only people would read the instructions," they say, "everything would be all right.

Whenever you see hand-lettered signs pasted on doors, switches, or products, trying to explain how to work them, what to do and what not to do, you are also looking at poor design.

The mind carries you with it, away from what you are supposed to do, toward things that cannot be explained rationally, toward difficulty, lack of clarity, late-afternoon light.

Terminological infelicities have a way of breeding conceptual confusion.

The best programs are written so that computing machines can perform them quickly and so that human beings can understand them clearly. A programmer is ideally an essayist who works with traditional aesthetic and literary forms as well as mathematical concepts, to communicate the way that an algorithm works and to convince a reader that the results will be correct.

Most of them have gotten really good at saying absolutely nothing. They've all got some kind of program, but when you listen to them, you still don't know what they're talking about.

An algorithm must be seen to be believed.

Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute.

His characters may be cardboard, but each has a clear, uncomplicated purpose. Every moment of the story contributes to building conflict.

We're clear. We're vague. We hate. We love. We feel passionately about our shoes yet shrug off disasters on TV. We are finely tuned sensors of right and wrong, and horrible examples for our kids. We are walking contradictions. We are encyclopedias of the heart.

Truth grew in my mind like a fungus, and though I tried to sleep it out, there was no resisting the epiphanies.