Amorphous Quotes

The most common definition of [the word information] is: the action of informing; formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching; communication of instructive knowledge.
This definition remained fairly constant until the years immediately following World War II, when it came in vogue to use 'information' as a technological term to define anything that was sent over an electric or mechanical channel. 'Information' became part of the vocabulary of the science of messages. And, suddenly, the appellation could be applied to something that didn't necessarily have to inform. This definition was extrapolated to general usage as something told or communicated, whether or not it made sense to the receiver. Now, the freedom engendered by such an amorphous definition has, as you might expect, encouraged its liberal deployment. It has become the single most important word of our decade, the suspense of our lives and our work. ~ Richard Saul Wurman

It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive. ~ Chuck Klosterman

I grew into it. It grew into me. It and I blurred at the edges, became one amorphous, seeping, crawling thing. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Both space and time are metrically amorphous, i.e. they do not have - despite how strongly we believe so - an inherent metric which would allow us to measure them without any definitions. In this sense, thus, neither space nor time is absolute. ~ Felix Alba-Juez

The internet has no government, no constitution, no laws, no rights, no police, no courts. Don't talk about fairness or innocence, and don't talk about what should be done. Instead, talk about what is being done and what will be done by the amorphous unreachable undefinable blob called the internet user base. ~ Paul Vixie

It was a mistake in the system; perhaps it lay in the precept which until now he had held to be uncontestable, in whose name he had sacrificed others and was himself being sacrificed: in the precept, that the end justifies the means. . . .

Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arise - with new flags, a new spirit knowing of both: of economic fatality and the "oceanic sense." Perhaps the members of the new party will wear monks' cowls, and preach that only purity of means can justify the ends. Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is wrong which says that a man is the quotient of one million divided by one million, and will introduce a new kind of arithmetic based on multiplication: on the joining of a million individuals to form a new entity which, no longer an amorphous mass, will develop a consciousness and an individuality of its own, with an "oceanic feeling" increased a millionfold, in unlimited yet self-contained space.

Rubashov broke off his pacing and listened. The sound of muffled drumming came down the corridor. ~ Arthur Koestler

In recent years my understanding of God had evolved into increasingly remote abstractions. I'd come to think of God in terms like Divine Reality, the Absolute, or the One who holds us in being. I do believe that God is beyond any form and image, but it has grown clear to me that I need an image in order to relate. I need an image in order to carry on an intimate conversation with what is so vast, amorphous, mysterious, and holy that it becomes ungraspable. I mean, really, how to you become intimate with Divine Reality? Or the Absolute? ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Soloveitchik's use redeems the word of redemption itself, sweeps away the more abstract and amorphous idea swirling in its wake, and focuses redemption as the right and the ability to control how you tell your ~ Anonymous

As a model, I didn't have an identity; I was a chameleon, a silent actress. I was an amorphous thing. I wasn't full of personality, I was full of solitude and solemnity. I wasn't a cover-girl type. ~ Carmen Dell'Orefice

Furthermore, it's equally evident that what goes on is actually one degree better than self-reproduction, for organisms appear to have gotten more elaborate in the course of time. Today's organisms are phylogenetically descended from others which were vastly simpler than they are, so much simpler, in fact, that it's inconceivable, how any kind of description of the latter, complex organism could have existed in the earlier one. It's not easy to imagine in what sense a gene, which is probably a low order affair, can contain a description of the human being which will come from it. But in this case you can say that since the gene has its effect only within another human organism, it probably need not contain a complete description of what is to happen, but only a few cues for a few alternatives. However, this is not so in phylogenetic evolution. That starts from simple entities, surrounded by an unliving amorphous milieu, and produce, something more complicated. Evidently, these organisms have the ability to produce something more complicated than themselves. ~ John Von Neumann

I could not resist the clarity of the world in books, the incredibly satisfying way in which life became weighty and accessible. Books were reality. I hadn't made up my own mind about my own life, a vague, dreamy affair, amorphous and dimly perceived, without beginning or end. ~ Frank Conroy

The grunt pulled his collar up around his neck. "Butterfinger." "Yeah." Queho nodded, a smile spreading across his face. "Butterfinger. Good one. I liked that one. I always got the candy stuck between my teeth. Same with the Heath Bar." He picked at his teeth with his finger. "Not worth the effort." The grunt kept pace with Queho. The caravan was traveling more like an amorphous pack. The town's wide streets accommodated the disorganization as the posse clopped along. Queho was so preoccupied with Dairy Queen, he didn't notice. "I always got the chocolate chip cookie dough," Queho said, licking his lips. "Oh, that was good. And remember? They'd hold it upside down?" He held out his hand to pantomime a Dairy Queen clerk holding a cup of ice cream upside down. "That way you knew how thick they made it." The ~ Tom Abrahams

Amorphous forms [of ice], for example, are found naturally on comets, on asteroids, and the crystalline forms are found on Earth or at least could be made on Earth with enough pressure. Nothing else does this. ~ Ira Flatow

Waiting for the response to a query is a little like being Schroedinger's cat. You are neither 'dead' nor 'alive', but some amorphous state in between. ~ Pippa Jay

The last year of her college career was wheeling slowly round. She could see ahead her examination and her departure. She had the ash of disillusion gritting under her teeth. Would the next move turn out the same? Always the shining doorway ahead; and then, upon approach, always the shining doorway was a gate into another ugly yard, dirty and active and dead. Always the crest of the hill gleaming ahead under heaven: and then, from the top of the hill only another sordid valley full of amorphous, squalid activity. ~ D.H. Lawrence

I could feel it in myself. I felt lighter, unshackled, as if something I had been carrying had fallen away ... I just enjoyed the feeling and watched the once amorphous student body separate itself into hundreds of individuals. The pronoun 'we' itself seemed to crack and drift apart in pieces. ~ Jerry Spinelli

Fame is weird and amorphous and unpredictable. ~ Tom Hiddleston

Stories are based in conflict, and when the conflict is resolved the story ends. That's because for the most part happiness is amorphous, wordless, and largely uninteresting. ~ Ann Patchett

I'm a very competitive person. I always have been. And it's hard to be competitive about something as amorphous as acting. But you can be competitive on the track, because the rules are very simple and the declaration of the winner is very concise. ~ Paul Newman

I don't see that there is a credible threat for American action - the rhetoric of the U.S. President is too vague, very amorphous. I don't see that Obama's words will be translated into more tangible intentions and therefore this is probably why the Iranians don't take it seriously. They speak out against it and they dismiss it. ~ Tzachi Hanegbi

And behind it all I saw the ineffable malignity of primordial necromancy, black and amorphous, and fumbling greedily after me in the darkness to choke out the spirit that had dared to mock it by emulation. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal. ~ Francoise Sagan

Love's not some amorphous concept created for books and poetry and not attainable. It's real and vital, and it's necessary. Damn it. ~ Nora Roberts

Because we are amorphous we hold that in reverence, thus the blade is swung. ~ Tite Kubo

The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass. ~ Stanislaw Lem

A citizen walking through the airport today is bombarded with 1984-style propaganda messages that are designed to make us fear some amorphous threat and also be suspicious of others. The government designs these messages to make us feel dependent and heavily lorded over in every aspect of our lives. These messages are becoming ever more pervasive, hitting us even in grocery stores when we are shopping. ~ Ron Paul

Many of the traditional approaches to interfaith dialogue have assumed that it can be successful only if agreements are reached about amorphous concepts and themes that various traditions may have in common. These approaches have also assumed that participants have to "weaken" or "compromise" elements of their own faith ... this is not necessarily constructive for engaging in interfaith understanding and dialogue. It is only when participants have a deep understanding of their own religious traditions and are willing to learn and recognize the richness of other religious traditions that constructive cooperation can take place between groups from different faiths. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 57-58) ~ David R. Smock

Listening (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself. ~ Virginia Woolf

It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Our understanding of life has only been enriched by the discovery that living flesh is composed of molecular clockwork rather than quivering protoplasm, or that birds soar by exploiting the laws of physics rather than defying them. In the same way, our understanding of ourselves and our cultures can only be enriched by the discovery that our minds are composed of intricate neural circuits for thinking, feeling, and learning rather than blank slates, amorphous blobs, or inscrutable ghosts. ~ Steven Pinker

In al-Qaeda we see a terrorist grouping with, in many ways, a medieval ideology, employing today's technology to great advantage. It works in a thoroughly modern way, virtual, amorphous, franchised and unbounded by geography. It has recruited people from all over the world. It understands the power of images, both in its campaign of terror and in its recruitment and proselytising material. It skillfully exploits the instant communications and social networking of the IT age. ~ Eliza Manningham-Buller

Much of the image of the amazingness of America comes from the movies into other cultures. And it's much the same thing when you reverse it. Much of Africa is presented through poverty, through drought and war. [But] you're not presenting people, you're not presenting countries, you're not presenting complexity, and so people can't care about an amorphous mass called Africa. ~ Chris Abani

Not scared.
But excited in that
jiggering-on-too-much-hot-sauce
kind of way
that it's time to
step out
of my old framework,
raw and amorphous,
to become something I've never thought of before. ~ Thalia Chaltas

But what might a woman say about church as she? What might a woman say about the church as body and bride?

Perhaps she would speak of the way a regular body moves through the world - always changing, never perfect - capable of nurturing life, not simply through the womb, but through hands, feet, eyes, voice, and brain. Every part is sacred. Every part has a function.

Perhaps she would speak of impossible expectations and all the time she's wasted trying to contort herself into the shape of those amorphous silhouettes that flit from magazines and billboards into her mind. Or of this screwed-up notion of purity as a status, as something awarded by men with tests and checklists and the power to give it and take it away.

Perhaps she would speak of the surprise of seeing herself - flaws and all - in the mirror on her wedding day. Or of the reality that with new life comes swollen breasts, dry heaves, dirty diapers, snotty noses, late-night arguments, and a whole army of new dangers and fears she never even considered before because life-giving isn't nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but it's a thousand times more beautiful.

Perhaps she would talk about being underestimated, about surprising people and surprising herself. Or about how there are moments when her own strength startles her, and moments when her weakness - her forgetfulness, her fear, her exhaustion - unnerve her.

Maybe she would tell of the time, in the mount ~ Rachel Held Evans

Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form." Childan nodded. "Yet," Paul said, "I have for several days now inspected it, and for no logical reason I feel a certain emotional fondness. Why is that? I may ask. I do not even now project into this blob, as in psychological German tests, my own psyche. I still see no shapes or forms. But it somehow partakes of Tao. You see?" He motioned Childan over. "It is balanced. The forces within this piece are stabilized. At rest. So to speak, this object has made its peace with the universe. It has separated from it and hence has managed to come to homeostasis. ~ Philip K. Dick

Trees are very often the home of Elemental beings which you would call nature spirits, intelligences of primeval age which enjoy drifting through your world and others in a more amorphous manner. Rocks, mountains, crystals, bodies of water – these too are homes of conscious beings. ~ Elizabeth S. Eiler

I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid-a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry-Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity ... The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous." ~ Benoit Mandelbrot

I like Cronenberg's early work; his '80s films had all these weird, amorphous flesh objects in them. ~ Autre Ne Veut

But seriously, because you both fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see
and you, looking for destiny! It's classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less
a black amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force
~ Ralph Ellison

Where Cezanne captured and intensified shards of the eternal (every pear far more sharply defined than it could be in life), Monet portrayed the changeability and flux of every moment. 'The Water Lilies' give you a jittery, amorphous sense of a world seen at the speed of light. ~ Jerry Saltz

What, after all, is the public under present conditions? What are the reasons for its eclipse? What hinders it from finding and identifying itself? By what means shall its inchoate and amorphous estate be organized into effective political action relevant to present social needs and opportunities? What has happened to the public in the century and a half since the theory of political democracy was urged with such assurance and hope? ~ John Dewey

... no one wanted to think about the gangs of no-hope teenagers who already took over the nearby park all day, drinking lager and waiting for something to happen to them, trapped in a forgotten village in no-man's land between a ten-shop town and an amorphous industrial sprawl. ~ Meera Syal

You are not a god, though you are hostile
as a god, inhospitable and anonymous
as a metropolis, your grey and single-
minded industry transforming the shore
into yourself. Narcissism is not
self-love, but a mechanism of survival,
your cogs churning amorphous as maggots,
pallid as almonds, paper-whites, the high
notes of foam. ~ Warren Heiti

We have been assembled and fabricated into well-behaved students, predictable consumers, and obedient citizens. Most of what is feral has been domesticated. We suffocate in an amorphous glob of sameness. We have learned it is better to conform than to be. ~ Gerry Spence

History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton. ~ Gwen Ifill

With so many part-time people on - and not on - the job, corporate America has started to feel like it's on a permanent maternity leave. Colleagues are an amorphous, free-floating army of rotating waifs whose voicemails are clogged with plaintive requests from their own offices for missing information. ~ Tina Brown

If diversity is a source of wonder, its opposite - the ubiquitous condensation to some blandly amorphous and singulary generic modern culture that takes for granted an impoverished environment - is a source of dismay. There is, indeed, a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame, and re-inventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most importent challenge of our times. ~ Wade Davis

At the present time it is widely accepted among lawyers that law is higher than morality - law is something which is shaped and developed, whereas morality is something inchoate and amorphous. This is not the case. The opposite is true: morality is higher than law! Law is our human attempt to embody in rules a part of that moral sphere which is above us. We try to understand this morality, bring it down to earth, and present it in the form of law. Sometimes we are more successful, sometimes less. Sometimes we have a mere caricature of morality, but morality is always higher than law. This view must never be abandoned. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Entirely my own opinion," said Ivanov. "I am glad that we have reached the heart of the matter soon. In other words: you are convinced that "we" – that is to say, the Party, the State and the masses behind it – no longer represent the interests of the Revolution."
"I should leave the masses out of it," said Rubashov. […] "Leave the masses out of it, " he repeated. "You understand nothing about them. Nor, probably, do I any more. Once, when the great "we" still existed, we understood them as no one had ever understood them before. We had penetrated into their depths, we worked in the amorphous raw material of history itself…" […] "At that time," Rubashov went on, "we were called the Party of the Plebs. What did the others know of history? Passing ripples, little eddies and breaking waves. They wondered at the changing forms of the surface and could not explain them. But we had descended into the depths, into the formless, anonymous masses, which at all times constituted the substance of history; and we were the first to discover her laws of motion. We had discovered the laws of her inertia, of the slow changing of her molecular structure, and of her sudden eruptions. That was the greatness of our doctrine. The Jacobins were moralists; we were empirics. We dug in the primeval mud of history and there we found her laws. We knew more than ever men have known about mankind; that is why our revolution succeeded. And now you have buried it all again…." […] "Well," said Rubashov ~ Arthur Koestler

At nineteen, you can make out for hours, that goal-less, amorphous melting into someone else. ~ Carrie Brownstein

Calvin had a talent for inventing abusive nicknames and he styled this amorphous opposition 'Libertines', which had a conveniently scandalous resonance, while also reflecting the undoubted fact that his opponents sought a freedom for which he saw no need. ~ Diarmaid MacCulloch

My blind adoration of Omi was devoid of any element of conscious criticism, and still less did I have anything like a moral viewpoint where he was concern. Whenever I tried to capture the amorphous mass of my adoration within the confines of analysis, it would already have disappeared. If there be such a thing as love that has neither duration nor progress, this was precisely my emotion. The eyes through which I saw Omi were always those of a 'first glance' or, if I may say so, of the 'primeval glance'. It was purely an unconscious attitude on my part, a ceaselesseffort to protect my fourteen-yesr-old purity from the process of erosion.

Could this have been love? Grant it to be one form of love, for even though at first glance it seemed to retain its pristine form forever, simply repeating that form over and over again, it too had its own unique sort of debasement and decay. And it was a debasement more evil than that of any normal kind of love. Indeed, of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.

Nevertheless, in my unrequited love for Omi, in this the first love I encountered in life, I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself.

To say the least, while at school, particularly during a boring class, I could not take my eyes off Omi's profile. What more could I have done ~ Yukio Mishima

The principal reason, invariably, most "successful" giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact, the worse things get, typically, the more they dig in their heels and defend yesterday's turf. ~ Tom Peters

Now, though, the command he gave made two vaguenesses congeal into one threat, distant, amorphous, but unmistakable, as when, against a background of city dawn and back alley clatter, one click and one clack come together into the telltale click-clack of a ready gun, and echo won't tell you whether the enemy's perch is left, or right, or high, or low, only that it is near. ~ Ada Palmer

I could turn up the volume on their songs and that loudness matched all my panic and fear, anger and emotions that seemed up until that point to be uncontrollable, even amorphous. ~ Carrie Brownstein

Brought with it amorphous longings, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass. ~ Bono

The standard modern measurement for inebriation is the Ose system. This has been considerably developed over the years, but the common medical consensus currently has jocose, verbose, morose, bellicose, lachrymose, comatose, adios.
This is a workable but incomplete system, as it fails to take in otiose (meaning impractical) which comes just after jocose. Nor does it have grandiose preceding bellicose. And how they managed to miss out globose (amorphous or formless) before comatose is beyond me. ~ Mark Forsyth

As the voices fall silent, the individuals who make up the amorphous and always changing community must decide for themselves, as they always have. I can't write a coda because I can't speak for others. I can only and ever speak for myself. ~ G.R. Reader

The real principle is that between is used for a relationship of an individual to any number of other individuals, as long as they are being considered two at a time, whereas among is used for a relationship of an individual to an amorphous mass or collectivity. ~ Steven Pinker

The bottom of the sea was aflame with a vast bloody glow that spread beneath the schooner; the light slid under the keel and illuminated the sails and rigging from below. It was as though we were on a boat in the Drury Lane Theatre, lighted by an invisible row of flares.

'Phosphorescence?' I ventured.

'Look,' whispered Jellewyn.

The water had become as transparent as glass. At an enormous depth, we saw great dark masses with unreal shapes: there were manors with immense towers, gigantic domes, horribly straight streets lined with frenzied houses. We appeared to be flying over a furiously busy city at an incredible height.

'There seems to be movement,' I said.

'Yes.'

We could see a swarming crowd of amorphous beings engaged in some sort of feverish and infernal activity.

'Get back!' Jellewyn shouted, pulling me violently by the belt.

One of those beings was rising toward us with astounding speed. In less than a second its immense bulk had hidden the undersea city from us; it was as though a flood of ink had instantaneously spread around us.

The keel received a tremendous blow. In the crimson light, we saw three enormous tentacles, three times as high as the mainmast, hideously writhing in the air. A formidable face composed of black shadows and two eyes of liquid amber rose above the port side of the ship and gave us a terrifying look. ~ Jean Ray

It is not a loss of inert, amorphous tissue, but of a growing being unique in history. ~ Frederica Mathewes-Green

The Amoeba?" she asked Aiden.
"The gang," he said, tossing his hand to indicate all around. "My
people. A large amorphous mass that keeps on changing size, hasn't
much apparent use, sometimes makes you sick, and occasionally breaks
off into smaller parts that act exactly like the parent. ~ Annette Curtis Klause

History is the product of vast, amorphous and indecipherable social movements. ~ Leo Tolstoy

What makes this inner void so difficult to deal with is that it's amorphous. We can't fix it because we can't pinpoint its precise cause. And even if we could, we wouldn't be able to banish it. It's the price we pay for being human. ~ Mari Ruti

One downward cut, she saw. One quick, final strike, and she could kill him. The landing lights of a shuttle appeared in the distance, coming over the trees in her direction. She had to make a decision, now. Kill him, a voice inside her head said. It was amorphous, unidentifiable, raw. Pure vengeful emotion. So easy, she told herself. So quick. ~ Alan Dean Foster

To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall
that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

In my 40s - when I was giving to the Red Cross, United Jewish Appeal and other charities - I said to myself, this is all well and good, but these are really amorphous things, and maybe there are some causes out there that I really give a damn about. ~ Charles Bronfman

This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I was twelve, after all, an age at which kids are bewildered and amorphous, transforming overnight, no matter how stable their lives are; ~ Tana French

Dismissing socialization and gender roles as piddling compared to this amorphous idea of 'maternal imperative' is part of the reason progress is stalled for family-friendly policies. ~ Jessica Valenti

After centuries of silence, someone or something was lying outside on the stone step . . .

"Are you deaf?" Death asked arriving abruptly with screams and cries and a fetid smell of rotting matter filling the room.

"Why are you here?" the Old Crone asked, knowing the answer before she asked the question. "Go away."

"When someone knocks you're supposed to open the door!" Death said, coughing as though she had swallowed a lot of water.

"What are you doing here?" the Old Crone asked again "and why are you amorphous? Show yourself! I don't like it when you look like nothing at all."

"Open the door!" Death rasped, appearing as a drowned cat coughing up minnows and river detritus. "Our future depends upon it! ~ Denny Taylor

In the last twenty-five years, the borderline patient, who confronts the psychiatrist not with well-defined symptoms but with diffuse dissatisfactions, has become increasingly common. He does not suffer from debilitating fixations or phobias or from the conversion of repressed sexual energy into nervous ailments; instead he complains "of vague, diffuse dissatisfactions with life" and feels his "amorphous existence to be futile and purposeless." He describes "subtly experienced yet pervasive feelings of emptiness and depression," "violent oscillations of self-esteem," and "a general inability to get along." He gains "a sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong, admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported." Although he carries out his daily responsibilities and even achieves distinction, happiness eludes him, and life frequently strikes him as not worth living. ~ Christopher Lasch

And so I lie in bed and feel what I don't need come out of me. A steady ooze of bloody, amorphous clots slides out of me for days and with it flows all the guilt and regret and fear that I have carried, and while I sleep, people stronger than I am silently take it all away and dispose of it properly. ~ Hope Jahren

Drag me to the moon, to catch a star and seize its brilliance as I'm swept up in amorphous dust. ~ Bradley Chicho

I'll confess that I don't watch the Olympics, but you'd have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the corruption and the expense. An amorphous organization with no transparency, unclear lines of responsibility, huge amounts of politics and a great deal of unearned power. ~ Seth Godin

If you let a stupid to shape your country, you will surely get an amorphous country! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Some of Mr. Gregory's poems have merely appeared in The New Yorker ; others are New Yorker poems: the inclusive topicality, the informed and casual smartness, the flat fashionable irony, meaningless because it proceeds from a frame of reference whose amorphous superiority is the most definite thing about it they are the trademark not simply of a magazine but of a class. ~ Randall Jarrell

I think language is a system that we have devised to negotiate a series of more amorphous entities. It's a layer you can use to see where those things exist, but if you don't have anyone speaking anymore, those things are still there. The things that language stands for do not require humans, and in fact are often trampled down by humans. ~ Blake Butler

And within the world that you've created, the physics of that world have to remain constant; they can't be amorphous and changing. ~ Bill Sienkiewicz

We sense this, we aggregate that, we compress information to some new output, in the form of a sentence in a human language, a language called English. A language both very structured and very amorphous, as if it were a building made of soups. A most fuzzy mathematics. Possibly utterly useless. Possibly the reason why all these people have come to this pretty pass, and now lie asleep within us, dreaming. Their languages lie to them, systemically, and in their very designs. A liar species. What a thing, really. What an evolutionary dead end. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

The almost complete, but temporary, loss of self that was involved - a loss of self present in all intense sexual encounters - doubled as an open door through which one could enter new areas of thought, as if one had left one's old self behind, as if within this new, amorphous territory, in which one was no longer one's previous self but had not yet become anything else, infinite modes of discovery became possible. The intimacy of our nakedness made us feel, or at least gave the illusion, that we were so much more directly engaged, both in dialogue with the larger world of ideas and with each other. This directness of being intertwined, exhausted and sated, of drifting in and out of sleep and having the strains of our discussions, of our nighty lessons, freely intermixed with half-remembered dreams forms the basis for a different kind of learning, learning that enters not only through the mind but also through skin and sweat and pores. In this way ideas are divested of their previously cold abstraction and instead gain heat, momentum and complicity. This is the deep learning, and there is no conduit for it other than one's intimate and ongoing personal experience. ~ Jacob Wren