Explaining Quotes - Page 10

• There is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Useless, Reason, Reasoning

  "White Nights and Other Stories".

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• It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.

  Ann Beattie

  People, Trying, Dinner

  Ann Beattie (2010). “Walks With Men: Fiction”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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• Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips.

  Grace Paley

  Summer, Running, Sweet

  Grace Paley (2016). “Begin Again: Poems by Gracey Paley”, p.199, Hachette UK

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• Whoa, Rebecca," Talia said smiling even wider, "Walking on the wild side, are we?" Raisa seemed to think the situation needed more explaining. "He - uh - I'm tutoring him." "She is," Han said solemnly. "She's very good. I'm learning a lot." Pearlie snickered. "What's she teaching you?" "Well," Han said, "we're jumping around a lot.

  Cinda Williams Chima

  Teaching, Thinking, Jumping

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• Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.

  Charles Bukowski

  Animal, Talking, Soul

  Charles Bukowski (1978). “Women”

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• When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the country." - Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream

  Cornel West

  Dream, Country, Men

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• I agree, Dad. I was just explaining to the woman why we don’t look anything alike and why you would have been younger than me when I was born. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you ‘cause you know I do. Make one snotty comment in anger when you’re twelve years old going through puberty and getting grounded, and you pay for it for the rest of your life. Parents ain’t got no sense of humor. (Omari)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Dad, Love You, Mean

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Born Of Ice: Number 3 in series”, p.99, Hachette UK

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• He's just explaining the situation to her, but he's all over her every chance he gets! Kureno! Touching Tohru!!!

  Natsuki Takaya

  Touching, Chance, Situation

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• Dave and Tate were dressed with equal heinousness. More black leather, chains, and whips. Either Don’s staff truly had costumes for all possible occasions on hand, or someone at wardrobe had a lot of explaining to do.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Hands, Black, Costumes

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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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• Like every big organisation these days, the BBC is obsessed with the wellbeing of those who set foot on its premises. Studios must display warning notices if there is real glass on the set, and the other day I was presented with a booklet explaining how to use a door. I am not kidding.

  Jeremy Clarkson

  Real, Glasses, Doors

  Jeremy Clarkson (2004). “The world according to Clarkson”

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• Don't bother explaining--I've heard all the excuses and the trouble is most of them are true.

  John Brunner

  Trouble, Excuse, Bother

  John Brunner (2014). “Children of the Thunder”, p.187, Open Road Media

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• But come. No explaining or mending. Be beside me somewhere.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Mending

  "Here We Aren't, So Quickly" by Jonathan Safran Foer, www.newyorker.com. June 14-21, 2010.

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• You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wisdom, Philosophy, Goes On

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.230, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother's strength, Marion's determination, and Michael's sly humor. I wasn't sure what I could give, not just yet. But I would know when I told her about the comet, years from now, I would know. And I would lean close to her ear, saying the words no one else could hear, explaining it all. The language of solace and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

  Sarah Dessen

  Girl, Mother, Determination

  Sarah Dessen (2003). “How to Deal”, Puffin

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• Thank you for explaining that my eye cancer isn't going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.

  John Green

  Cancer, Eye, Grace

  "The Fault in Our Stars". Book by John Green, 2012.

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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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• I had a horrible feeling my leg was broken. If it wasn’t, it had a lot of explaining to do.

  Darynda Jones

  Broken, Feelings, Legs

  Darynda Jones (2015). “The Charley Davidson Series”, p.721, St. Martin's Press

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• Leaving people to jumped conclusions is sometimes simpler than explaining a complicated truth

  Gayle Forman

  People, Leaving, Sometimes

  FaceBook post by Gayle Forman from Mar 13, 2014

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• Time, among all concepts in the world of physics, puts up the greatest resistance to being dethroned from ideal continuum to the world of the discrete, of information, of bits.... Of all obstacles to a thoroughly penetrating account of existence, none looms up more dismayingly than 'time.' Explain time? Not without explaining existence. Explain existence? Not without explaining time. To uncover the deep and hidden connection between time and existence ... is a task for the future.

  John Archibald Wheeler

  Time, Connections, Tasks

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• In the songs I can still be really really direct but in interviews when I'm explaining my songs I shouldn't be so direct about who they're about.

  Adele

  Song, Interviews, Stills

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• I am much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which means are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must be corrupt.

  Martin Luther

  Education, Children, Heart

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• Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

  Warren Buffett

  Stars, Business, Loss

  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman's Letter, www.berkshirehathaway.com. 2005.

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• Stop explaining yourself. Shut up and act!

  Craig MacDonald

  Acting, Shut Up

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• God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.

  Douglas Adams

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  Douglas Adams (2005). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.104, Del Rey

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