Quotes About Complexity

He tried to imagine what it had been like to be Hemingway, in Paris, in the 1920s. To write those clear, seemingly unadorned, yet complex sentences that would change forever the way Americans wrote prose. To do all that and then go out to dinner where you knew how to order the perfect seasonal wine to go with your huîtres. To be an American in Paris back when it was O.K. to be American.

All wisdom ends in paradox

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in sadness, joy, or regret. Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.

But even as we make these conclusions we feel our throats plugging up, because they are both true and untrue. So much has been written about the girls in the newspapers, so much has been said over backyard fences, or related over the years in psychiatrists' offices, that we are certain only of the insufficiency of explanations.

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.

Én vagyok a pont egy összetett mondat végén, amely mondat hosszú-hosszú évekkel ezelÅ'tt, egy másik nyelven kezdÅ'dött, és amelyet az elejétÅ'l kell olvasni, hogy érteni lehessen a végét – azt, amikor megérkeztem én.

So, to recap: Sourmelina Zizmo (née Papadiamandopoulos) wasn't only my first cousin twice removed. She was also my grandmother. My father was his own mother's (and father's) nephew. In addition to being my grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty were my great-aunt and -uncle. My parents would be my second cousins once removed and Chapter Eleven would be my third cousin as well as my brother.

Emotion, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in sadness, joy, or regret. Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, the happiness that attends disaster. ...most of my emotions are hybrids. But not all. Some are pure and unadulterated. Jealousy, for instance.

I know loving me isn't easy – the all-night helicopter parties, the glow-in-the-dark haircuts, but when I look at you it's like praying with my eyes. I know it's stupid to not own a gun yet have so many triggers, but in some other world gigantic seashells hold humans to their ears and listen to the echo of machines.

And figuring people out was Nadine's A game. All she could ascertain pointed to a woman who was scary ordinary. But nobody went into this field because they were whole and happy. Two kinds of individuals settled into the profession of psychology, the broken and the ones who like to drive a pin through a living fly to watch it wiggle.

And why do you want to be near me? Because you're all I can think about, day and night. I don't know what the hell is going on with us; I only know I can't get rid of it. I don't care if you're batshit insane and think you're the reincarnation of Cleopatra. I hear voices; you hear dogs. We'll work it out. Maybe get a discount on therapy.

It was possible to love someone and hate him at the same time.

A volte penso di aver qualcuno dentro, ma è un'altra parte di me, più strana. A volte la vedo nello specchio.

Beautiful doesn't begin to describe it. A flower is beautiful. But this is beautiful the way that a person is beautiful- terrifying with its jagged edges, yet seductive with its crevices that hide so many secrets.

All these attempts to impose order and fairness on a naturally random and unfair universe endorse the borderline's futile struggle to choose only black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. But the world is neither intrinsically fair nor exact; it is composed of subtleties that require less simplistic approaches. A healthy civilization can accept the uncomfortable ambiguities. Attempts to eradicate or ignore uncertainty tend only to encourage a borderline society.

the world is neither intrinsically fair nor exact; it is composed of subtleties that require less simplistic approaches.

Love is big. Love makes room for conflicting feelings.

T]he problem was too much information. The population was being inundated with conflicting versions of increasingly complex events. People were giving up on understanding anything. The glut of information was dulling awareness, not aiding it. Overload. It encouraged passivity, not involvement.

I believe we're all secretly happy we can't figure our relationships out. It keeps our minds working.

But feelings, they don't care about telling. They just go right on, piling on top of one another like a big sandwich.

All my life I'd gone for women who were a little off.

There were innumerable selves that he evoked in her.

He had never really mastered English, but he'd studied enough to have a healthy fear of its random severity, the senseless brutatlity of its conjugations; it was unpredictable, like a cross-bred dog.