Quotes About Complexity

I love being an enigma. Every time I'm tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically - you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you're pro-gun, or you're anti-gun - I stop and say to myself, 'This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can't figure out.'

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning.

I go back and forth between wanting to be abundantly simple and maddeningly complex.

While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice.

It felt to me like America was always wanting to resolve things too quickly, without thinking through what the costs and consequences would be and how that affects an individual living in that world. Then as I grew up and went about my life, I think I just got more and more interested in that gray area where things are not so easily quantified.

Part of what I like about the best villains in TV and film is when you feel sorry for them, and that makes you feel even worse for feeling guilty about wanting them to succeed, in some way.

The problem with wanting the tax code to be 'simpler, fairer,' and 'pro-growth' is that it's impossible to achieve all three at the same time.

We have, of course, all of our Oracle technologies in our cloud. But I don't think you're going to see customers wanting to deal with 50 clouds or 40 clouds or anything like that.

The Great War was nobody's fault - or everybody's.

'Narcos' moves so fast, and the war on drugs is just so vast, and there are so many things you can focus on.

Counter-insurgency warfare is not a simple thing... it's not as simple as, like, good guys versus bad guys. It is a mess.

I was very much in love with my mother. She was a very warm and a very cold woman. When she was warm, I tried to come close to her. But she could be very cold and rejecting.

The stuff I write about doesn't, like, necessarily leave people feeling warm and fuzzy. I'm writing in a territory that's, like, contested and full of prickliness. And I find that people project their problems onto me or something.

Either you're this, or you're that: either you're - if you're a Pakistani, you're a terrorist; if you're an American, you might be a militarist. Those kind of prisms that we see each other through are really stultifying, and they don't often show the complexity and the incredible warmth and encompassing of the world.

I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.

I felt that just looking at the world in general, there are so many types of people, and some hide who they truly are. And I feel that every person has some kind of warped identity inside them that they decide if they want to show or not.

The wars of the future will be fought by computer technicians and by lawyers and high-altitude specialists, and that may mean war will be increasingly abstract, hard to think about and hard to control.

Like wars, forest fires and bad marriages, really stupid laws are much easier to begin than they are to end.

Wars are getting longer, they are more complex, and the humanitarian need is great.

That's what I love about history - nuance. I don't believe in unalloyed heroes. Everyone's got warts, and everyone's got a surprise side.

If there's a theme to where I'm at in my life, it's that 'warts and all' is actually my superpower. Just like you, I'm messed up and I'm capable. I'm this and that.

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

I'd be wary of simple solutions to complex problems.

I'm always a bit wary when people say in interviews, 'I'm at the happiest place of my life that I've ever been.' I think, 'Really? Are you?' Life is a mix, isn't it?