Quotes About Complexity

'The State Within' demands a certain intelligence from its audience. It doesn't just wash over you - it asks for commitment. And that's a really good thing.

My washing machine overwhelms me with its options and its sophistication.

But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.

Haven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing.

Nothing was just one thing; there were worlds within worlds. Those of us who trod the line between were blessed and burdened with both.

The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone.

A single action could derive from many motivations. I should never assume.

There are never just two choices. That is a lie to keep you from thinking too deeply.

Quootla had a suffix, - utl , that could be glued to the end of anything—nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, small rodents—and meant the word itself plus its opposite, simultaneously. It didn't always translate into Goreddi. Time/no-time almost made sense; blue/orange or fall/rise or dog/whatever-the-opposite-of-dog-is were perfectly intelligible in Quootla but boggling to nearly everyone else.

First, I gave you two choices as a test: there are never just two choices. That is a lie to keep you from thinking too deeply. Second, and more important: the body is innocent. Deeply, beautifully, fundamentally innocent.

He chuckled into my hair, enjoying this. I loved him terribly just then, how he puzzled through obscure scholarship and reveled in ideas, never mind that he'd called my mind hell.

When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows.

A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was OK to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.

Things are more complicated than some can admit. People are stupider and less demonic than some can admit.

Isn't that what intimacy so often is? Supposing you understand, conveying that you do, because you feel in theory that you could understand, and you want to, and yet secretly you don't?

people only tend to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was okay to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad. P.357

But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was okay to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.

Reading him was like reading runes — apparently you had to know the language.

Stephanie Mines is brilliant in her ability to articulate the complexities of shock and trauma, along with the framework for healing that she has developed. This makes her classes deeply gratifying and inspiring. I now have invaluable tools that support me in caring for myself, as well as skills and a new perspective that helps me in my care of others.

Simple Complex systems can arise from simple rules. It's not that we want to survive, it's that we've been drugged and made to act as if we do while all the while the sea breaks and rolls, painlessly, under. If we're not copying it, we're lonely. Is this the knowledge that demands to be passed down? Time is made from swatches of heaven and hell. If we're not killing it, we're hungry.

Life can be infernally complex,' he said.

There are so many charlatans in the world of education. They teach for a couple of years, come up with a few clever slogans, build their websites, and hit the lecture circuit. In this fast-food-society, simple solutions to complex problems are embraced far too often. We can do better. I hope that people who read this book realize that true excellence takes sacrifice, mistakes, and enormous amounts of effort. After all, there are no shortcuts.

Thoughts can exist... feelings can exist... but words do not always exist.

We're never single-minded, unperplexed, like migratory birds.