Quotes About Complexity

India has in fact raced ahead, in ways that are more dazzling and more confusing than America is.

Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough.

People might look great on the outside but they all have something that they're dealing with.

There's no way to know exactly what someone's dealing with, no matter how open you are. You're just never going to know everything.

I like the idea that I come into a room, and you think you're dealing with one thing, but the truth is I'm very layered.

The issue of assault in the military is something that they've gone to great lengths to try to deal with - and have not entirely dealt with yet.

For whatever reason, gay characters, or characters that deal with sexuality issues, who are black, in 'black films'... are typically not dealt with with any sort of complexity. They're exoticized: their being gay is sort of the point.

I liked Dallas better because it was more deceptive, you could do more with it.

Public decision-making does not lend itself to certitude.

I never want to write a book just to tell a story. There is always something deeper going on.

Families are the deepest, most screwed up relationships that we have.

I don't think there's anybody I write about who I don't care for deeply in some way, no matter what their behavior is.

There is nothing more difficult to define than an aphorism.

We're not monolithic. What is blackness? To me, how do you define that?

There is more than just words to define a person.

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

I'm not a man who likes to define his identity too narrowly.

I can't really define myself as a dramatist or as an actor or as someone who is interested in music.

Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them.

I don't want to be easily defined.

Contemporary defenders of the Enlightenment shouldn't overgeneralize: the Enlightenment, however it is defined, is not an unalloyed good.

What I have done in 'Company' can't be defined.

I always think about race as a part of one's identity, not the whole of one's identity. You don't want it to be the defining characteristic of a character. There has to be more.

Sometimes, the actual feeling of loving someone takes a back seat because we are busy defining it.