Quotes About Complexity

In a short story by Chekhov or a novel by Balzac he found mysteries which, so far as he was aware, did not exist in any spy thriller. 35

As the questions grow harder and more complicated, people yearn for simpler answers, one-sentence answers, answers that point unhesitatingly to a culprit who can be blamed for all our suffering, answers that promise that if we only eradicate the villains, all our troubles will vanish.

io, mio caro, non credo nell'amore universale. L'amore esiste in dosi modiche. Si possono amare forse cinque fra uomini e donne, dieci magari, talvolta financo quindici. E anche questo solo assai di rado. Ma se uno arriva e mi dice che ama tutto il Terzo mondo, o ama l'America Latina, o ama il sesso femminile, quello non è amore ma retorica. Pura demagogia. Slogan. Non siamo nati per amare più di una manciata di persone.

O crescimento do fanatismo pode ter relação com o fato de que quanto mais complexas as questões se tornam, mais as pessoas anseiam por respostas simples. Fanatismo e fundamentalismo muitas vezes têm uma resposta com uma só sentença para todo o sofrimento humano.

ein Grund für die Zunahme der Wellen des Fanatismus ist vielleicht die wachsende Sehnsucht nach einfachen Lösungen, nach Erlösung 'auf einen Schlag'.

The Golden Notebook

how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

Because I think to myself, even today, how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

If you have a seriousness of purpose, which is to understand yourself, human nature, the world, and the conflicts that make us infinitely interesting, you will find the stories that you want o tell.

Sometimes we reveal ourselves when we are least like ourselves.

Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.

I must know, he thinks. It must be clear to me. There is a world which is closed to him, a world of shadings, gradations, nuances, and subtleties. He is a genius and yet he is too explicit. June slips between his fingers. You cannot posses without loving.

You make me think of Casanova, except that in between the erotic, Casanova was boring, while you, in between eroticism and even because of it, you get profound.

But what a superb game the three of us are playing. Who is the demon? Who is the liar? Who the human being? Who the cleverest? Who the strongest? Who loves the most? Are we three immense egos fighting for domination or for love, or are these things mixed?

You loved a man who treated you like absinthe, half poison and half god.

I always run away from the simplest phrases because they never contain all of the truth. To me the truth is something which cannot be told in a few words, and those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.

I have always been tormented by the image of multiplicity of selves. Some days I call it richness, and other days I see it as a disease, a proliferation as dangerous as cancer. My first concept about people around me was that all of them were coordinated into a whole, whereas I was made of multitude of selves, of fragments.

I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her.

You have broken down all formal order, grooves, more than anyone I know outside of Dostoevsky's books.

Laughter and tears are not separate experiences, with intervals of rest: they rush out together and it is like walking with a sword between your legs.

I have come to the conclusion that the use and knowledge of words acts sometimes as a stumbling block rather than a clarifier.

He is a genius and yet he is too explicit. June slips between his fingers. You cannot possess without loving.

And there were other times I felt only your mind, and your mind is slippery, it gets between my thoughts and I have to squirt sand or the wheels will slip. . .

She cannot be considered as a whole. She is composed of fragments. Only passion gives her a moment of wholeness.