Explaining Things Quotes

• If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Success

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• Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Children, Forever, Understanding

  Le Petit Prince ch. 1 (1943)

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• History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story.

  Donald Kagan

  Stories, Way, Explaining

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it enough.

  Albert Einstein

  Success, Teaching, Data

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• Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

  Donald Knuth

  Art, Math, Science

  Foreword to the book "A=B" by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert S. Wilf and Doron Zeilberger, 1996.

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• You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

  Albert Einstein

  Mom, Grandma, Grandmother

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.482, Princeton University Press

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• The more everybody knows about all aspects of the problems we face, the better off all of us will be. Less time spent explaining things means more time for coming up with creative solutions.

  Jesse James Garrett

  Mean, Creative, Faces

  Interview with Erin Malone, boxesandarrows.com. October 27, 2002.

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• Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.

  Tom Hanks

  Way, Mama, Explaining

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• There's so much I wish for these days, but most of all, I wish you were here. It's strange, but before I met you, I couldn't remember the last time that I cried. Now, it seems that tears come easily to me...but you have a way of making my sorrows seem worthwhile, of explaining things in a way that lessens my ache. You are a treasure, a gift, and when we're together again, I intend to hold you until my arms are weak and I can do it no longer. My thoughts of you are sometimes the only things that keep me going.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Together Again, Sorrow, Wish

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• I like explaining things, and I believe that you can do very high-level explanation on basic cable news provided you are willing to work hard enough to be a good storyteller.

  Rachel Maddow

  Believe, Hard Work, News

  Interview with Grace Dunham, www.yahoo.com. April 21, 2016.

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• I think of my job on television as explaining things.

  Rachel Maddow

  Jobs, Thinking, Television

  Interview with Grace Dunham, www.yahoo.com. April 21, 2016.

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• Humor is a terrific tool for explaining things, especially when what you're explaining is frightening or dull and complicated.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Tools, Dull, Complicated

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• But I liked you from the moment I first heard your voice,” he said, “when I had no idea what you looked like. I thought it delicious, the way you bargained for me, as though I were an old rug. Then I loved the way you looked at me. Then I loved the way you ordered me about. I loved your patient and impatient ways of explaining things to me. I love the sound of your voice and the way you move. I love your courage and your kindness and your generosity and your obstinacy and your passion.” He paused. “You’re the genius. What do you think that means?

  Loretta Chase

  Kindness, Moving, Passion

  Loretta Chase (2005). “Mr. Impossible”, p.362, Penguin

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• With mockumentaries, the conceit is that the characters are being interviewed, so you can start a scene and cut to a character looking at the camera and saying, "I'm working on this project," instead of having to figure out ways for people to talk naturally about what they're doing. You see this problem in pilots - people end up explaining things to each other that they'd never explain in real life.

  Michael Schur

  Real, Character, Cutting

  "An Interview with Michael Schur". The Believer Magazine, Issue One Hundred Thirteen, believermag.com. October 1, 2015.

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• ... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it.

  Cory Doctorow

  Thinking, Self, Skills

  Cory Doctorow (2015). “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”, p.75, Booklassic

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• I like doing movies with kids in them, and you're explaining things. They're teaching you and you're teaching them, and the audience can loop through that.

  Aaron Eckhart

  Teaching, Kids, Explaining

  "Aaron Eckhart Talks ERASED, the Appeal of Spy Thrillers, His Physical Preparation for the Role, I, FRANKENSTEIN, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. May 17, 2013.

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• Ezra Pound still lives in a village and his world is a kind of village and people keep explaining things when they live in a village.... I have come not to mind if certain people live in villages and some of my friends still appear to live in villages and a village can be cozy as well as intuitive but must one really keep perpetually explaining and elucidating?

  Gertrude Stein

  People, Mind, World

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• It struck me that Steve Jobs, known to be such a brilliant speaker, had a very difficult time explaining things when he was younger. He was describing technology that didn't exist. He had MIT engineers, and he was trying to tell them what he wanted; but there were no terms for what he wanted yet. I think a lot of his early frustration was trying to quickly get his vision to the finish line.

  Joshua Michael Stern

  Jobs, Frustration, Technology

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• Not everyone is sold on crisis consultants. Linda Gray, assistant vice president and director of news and information at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, says that to a certain extent, the worse the crisis, the closer to home you should deal with it. .. You ought to be dealing with the crisis, not explaining things to somebody else.

  Linda Gray

  Home, Florida, President

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• I'm not very good at explaining things," she said. "But I think you have beautiful eyes. I love the gold in them. I love that they're different from my eyes- I see mine all the time and I'm bored with them.

  Holly Black

  Beautiful, Eye, Thinking

  Holly Black (2012). “Valiant”, p.128, Simon and Schuster

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• It saves trouble to be conventional, for you're not always explaining things.

  Myrtle Reed

  Trouble, Explaining, Conventional

  Myrtle Reed (1916). “Old Rose and Silver”, p.19, Library of Alexandria

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