Precise Quotes - Page 13

• I'm very analytical, I'm very precise.

  Al Yankovic

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.

  Julian Baggini

  Healthy, Mind, Obfuscation

  "What is this foolish lust for uncertainty?" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. October 28, 2011.

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• On the question of the world as a whole, science founders. For scientific knowledge the world lies in fragments, the more so the more precise our scientific knowledge becomes.

  Karl Jaspers

  Lying, Knowledge, Science

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• You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.

  Jay Asher

  Goes On, Mess, Persons

  Jay Asher (2011). “Thirteen Reasons Why”, p.201, Penguin

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• Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Past, Degrees

  Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.180, Psychology Press

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• You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

  Walt Whitman

  Nature, Travel, Flower

  Walt Whitman (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)”, p.1321, Delphi Classics

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• I want someone who will adore me so much that they cannot even walk past me without touching me in some way. I want someone who will worship me, even when.. I'm sitting around in fluffy slippers with no makeup on and hair scraped back. I'm sick and tired of being on my own. Most of the time I'm fine. Some of the time I even quite enjoy it. But at this precise moment in time I'm fed up with it. I've had enough.

  Jane Green

  Tired, Past, Makeup

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• I entirely agree that a historian ought to be precise in detail; but unless you take all the characters and circumstances into account, you are reckoning without the facts. The proportions and relations of things are just as much facts as the things themselves.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Character, Details, Facts

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• To be more precise it was the color of heartache.

  Susanna Clarke

  Color, Heartache

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• Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Principles, Western Culture

  "Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians". Book by Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, January 20, 2009.

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• Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

  Tom Stoppard

  Children, Thinking, Order

  Tom Stoppard (1999). “Arcadia”

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• I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Wall, Winter, Past

  Khaled Hosseini (2004). “The Kite Runner”, p.14, Penguin

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• There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C...(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy.... Well, this one left them all behind.

  William Goldman

  Couple, Kissing, Thumbs

  William Goldman (2013). “The Princess Bride”, p.48, A&C Black

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• It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, Insightful, Stories

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories”, p.25, Vintage

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• What are you doing?" "Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly. It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window. "Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?" "You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me. I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.

  Shannon Hale

  Eye, Hands, Strange Places

  Shannon Hale (2013). “Austenland: A Novel”, p.81, A&C Black

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• It feels strange to me to be living in a box, hiding from the steadying influence of the moon; wearing the hide of a cow, which is supposed to be dyed to match God-knows-what, on my feet; making promises over the telephone about things I will do at a precise hour next year.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Moon, Years, Feet

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.15, Faber & Faber

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• Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Memories, Opportunity, Men

  FaceBook post by Gabriel García Márquez from Jun 16, 2013

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• You have to be precise. You have to be specific, but you want to be accurate. That is first and foremost. You want to be on top of the story, but words do matter.

  Wolf Blitzer

  Communication, Stories, Want

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• It struck me recently, that one should really consider the sequence of a protein molecule about to fold into a precise geometric form as a line of melody written in a canon form & so designed by Nature to fold back into itself, creating harmonic chords of interaction consistent with biological function

  Christian B. Anfinsen

  Inspiration, Creating, Molecules

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• We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge.

  John McCain

  Fighting, Government, Water

  John McCain Climate Change Speech in Portland, Oregon, thinkprogress.org. May 12, 2008.

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• The personality and style of a photographer usually limits the type of subject with which he deals best. For example Cartier-Bresson is very interested in people and in travel; these things plus his precise feeling for geometrical relationships determine the type of pictures he takes best. What is of value is that a particular photographer sees the subject differently. A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think.

  Alexey Brodovitch

  Photography, Thinking, Expression

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• Unless you have a definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you.

  Zig Ziglar

  Life, Success, Leadership

  FaceBook post by Zig Ziglar from Sep 16, 2014

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• I am sure that one secret of a successful teacher is that he has formulated quite clearly in his mind what the pupil has got to know in precise fashion. He will then cease from half-hearted attempts to worry his pupils with memorizing a lot of irrelevant stuff of inferior importance.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Teacher, Fashion, Teaching

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Death, Thinking, Design

  Interview with Carlo Pescio, www.eptacom.net. June 1997.

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• The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Photography, Organization, Expression

  "Cartier-Bresson's classic is back - but his Decisive Moment has passed" by Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2014.

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