Quotes About Clarity

There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say.

I would have to think about it for two or three months before I decided to do something which would have meaning. And it would have to be more than just an impression or pleasure. I would need an objective, a meaning. That is the only thing that could help me.

In my career as a director, there's always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: 'What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?' At that time you have to say: 'OK, forget that and just go ahead.'

I threw my TV out years ago.

I've always liked texts that you immediately understand. I suppose the playwrights who really speak to me are Edward Bond, Joe Orton and Harold Pinter. I've been in six different Pinter productions - I love the clarity of his language. He has this way of using words - there's a thrill to them.

I write to be read. I'm quite direct about that. I'm not writing to thrill colleagues or to impress the professors at the University of Iowa; that's not my goal.

It's a great thriller or mystery, but on another level it's a film about the fact that, if you only look at a person through one lens, or only believe what you're told, you can often miss the truth that is staring you in the face.

I did turn down 'The Virgin Suicides.' I talked to the producers about it, and I just honestly told them that I didn't get it. Is it supposed to be funny, is it a thriller, what is it?

I like when entertainment not only makes me laugh or cry or thrills me, but makes the world a little clearer - and makes myself a little clearer.

I thrive on structure. I find my freedom in structure.

Seeing the world around you clearly is a critical step in developing an idea for a business, carrying out that idea, and then thriving with an ongoing concern. Through choice, predilection, lack of education, impatience, or other causes, the entrepreneur lives, in a way, outside the mainstream.

When death has you by the throat, you don't mince words.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one's own desires through which one listens.

Through shallow intellect, the mind becomes shallow, and one eats the fly, along with the sweets.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

I would very much like to be one of those writers who have something really clear in their head to say, and throughout their life they promote this idea in their works.

If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.

You can throw a novel into focus with one overheard line.

Every once in while, a person will do something obvious and direct that is no more than it appears to be. I think they do it to throw you off.

When do you know it's time to say, 'OK, that's it?' That is the most difficult part of any decision like that because you don't want to throw the 'R' word out there. I've mentioned it a couple times, but not in the sense that I'm doing it. That word is very fragile. We'll see.

At the end of the day, it is about the album and book and also about setting the record straight, because 'American Idol' has done a great job of defaming my name and throwing a lot of mud at me for the past two years. So that set up a lot of roadblocks for me.

Almost every time I go to the ocean, I think about throwing my phone right into it. Sometimes, you pull that thing out of your pocket, you look at it, and you're like, 'What was I just going to do with this? Was I going to take a note? Was I going to check my email? Was I going to take a picture?'

Sometimes you can get distracted by figures that are thrown out there and you're doing things you wouldn't normally try to do.

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it.