Ambiguous Quotes - Page 7

• When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run.

  Russell D. Moore

  Running, Fear, Kids

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• The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people-and this is true whether or not they are well-educated-is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations-in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

  Michael Moore

  Stupid, Intelligent, Differences

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• Black life is ambiguous, and a kaleidoscope of meanings, rich, multi-sided . . . we have frozen our vision in figures that caricature, at best the complexity of our lives and leave the real artistic chore of interpretation unfinished.

  Charles Bartlett Johnson

  Real, Black, Vision

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• The United States has been ambiguous on the current situation in Nepal. They have not actually come out very strongly in terms of pushing the king to take measures on the detentions or abuses by the army. China continues to provide military equipment.

  Irene Khan

  Kings, Military, Army

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• I only like luxury fashion. You have to decide where you stand. I like well-made, authentic clothes, well-crafted tailoring. I also like the dream and fantasy of luxury, the exception and rarity of it. I have no interest at all in fast retail. It is ambiguous.

  Hedi Slimane

  Dream, Fashion, Luxury

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• My style is ambiguous and lucid.

  Cee Lo Green

  Style

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• You can't know if your values are being violated if you're ambiguous about what they are

  Dan Pallotta

  Knows, Ifs, Values

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• If you have the personalities down, you understand them and identify with them; you can stick them in any situation and have a pretty good idea of how they're going to respond. Then it's just a matter of sanding and polishing up the jokes. But if you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well. These two characters clicked for me almost immediately and I feel very comfortable working with them.

  Bill Watterson

  Character, Ideas, Two

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• What of October, that ambiguous month, the month of tension, the unendurable month?

  Doris Lessing

  Months, October, Unendurable

  'The Martha Quest' (1952) pt. 4, ch. 1

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• Life is also a mixture of unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats-with very few moments of clear peace.

  Hugh Prather

  Victory, Mixtures, Problem

  Hugh Prather (2009). “Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person”, p.42, Bantam

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• I always end up taking people that are morally ambiguous.

  Billy Crudup

  People, Ends

  "Billy Crudup Bares All". Parade Interview, parade.com. March 3, 2009.

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• I think every good song tells a story, as ambiguous and vague as it may be. And if you know what a song is talking about, it can only help your performance.

  David Cook

  Song, Thinking, Talking

  "'Idol' moments with winner David Cook". Interview with Misha Berson, www.seattletimes.com. July 8, 2008.

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• I think that at the end of the day I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the New York Times crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it.

  Damon Lindelof

  New York, Real, Thinking

  "'Prometheus' Writer Damon Lindelof on Why 'Vague' Is Good and the 'Sadistically Cool' Fallout From the 'Lost' Finale". Interview with Todd Gilchrist, www.hollywoodreporter.com. June 7, 2012.

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• The first principle, when you don't know anything about the subject of a thesis, is to let the candidate talk, nodding now and then with an ambiguous smile. He thinks you know, and are counting his mistakes, and it unnerves him... the second principle of conducting an oral, ... is to pretend ignorance, and ask for explanations of very simple points. Of course your ignorance is real, but the examinee thinks you are being subtle, and that he is making an ass of himself, and this rattles him.

  Robertson Davies

  Mistake, Real, Ignorance

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• What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy.

  Donna Tartt

  Wall, Loneliness, Yellow

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• Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no need to drag our bodies around so much, all dressed up. It's hot, there are flies, diseases. It is enough to close our eyes, seated on a chair in the shade, to float on the waves of imagination. Isn't that what books are there for?

  Dacia Maraini

  Book, Eye, Journey

  Dacia Maraini, Dick Kitto, Elspeth Spottiswood (1999). “The Silent Duchess”, p.258, Feminist Press at CUNY

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• Among the words that can be all things to all men, the word "race" has a fair claim to being the most common, most ambiguous and most explosive. No one today would deny that it is one of the great catchwords about which ink and blood are spilled in reckless quantities. Yet no agreement seems to exist about what race means.

  Jacques Barzun

  Mean, Men, Race

  Jacques Barzun (1965). “Race: a study in superstition”

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• The energies of Lagos life- creative, malevolent, ambiguous- converge at the bus stops

  Teju Cole

  Bus Stops, Creative, Energy

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• Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.

  Leo Rosten

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• I don't want to be thought of as somebody who's spiritually ambiguous, but the reality is there's unknown things happening. I'm not ready to point at what they are or what the reason is, but I know they exist.

  Shane Carruth

  Reality, Want, Reason

  "Shane Carruth Reveals The Mysteries Of ‘Upstream Color’". Interview with Jessica Kiang, www.indiewire.com. April 8, 2013.

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• Being desirable means being comfortable with your own ambiguity. The most ambiguous reality is that we are flesh and spirit at the same time. Within everyone there is light and shadow, good and evil, love and hate. In order to be truthful, you must embrace your total being. A person who exhibits both positive and negative qualities, strengths and weaknesses is not flawed, but complete.

  Rumi

  Hate, Mean, Reality

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• I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings.

  David Brin

  Regret, I Regret, Tidings

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• everything is ambiguous. It's exciting, in a way, if you can tolerate ambiguity. I can't, but I'm taking a course where it's taught, in the hope of acquiring the skill. It's called Modern Living, and you get no credit.

  Sheila Ballantyne

  Skills, Credit, Way

  Sheila Ballantyne (1975). “Norma Jean, the termite queen”, Doubleday Books

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• Like music my drawings transport us to the ambiguous world of the indeterminate.

  Odilon Redon

  Drawing, World, Transport

  "Great Paintings of the World". Book by Jean-François Guillou, p. 190, 2000.

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• There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning -- without altogether recognizing it beneath the disguise of ambiguous behavior which it assumes in his presence.

  Marcel Proust

  Vices, Assuming, Virtue

  Marcel Proust, Dennis Joseph Enright (1992). “In Search of Lost Time: Swann's way”, Vintage

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