Convoluted Quotes

The documents were in English - sort of - but the language was so convoluted that it was beginning to give her a headache. It made for even duller reading than her chemistry text. ~ Francine Pascal

When we fail to open the closed-minded consumers of racist ideas, we blame their closed-mindedness instead of our foolish decision to waste time reviving closed minds from the dead. When our vicious attacks on open-minded consumers of racist ideas fail to transform them, we blame their hate rather than our impatient and alienating hate of them. When people fail to consume our convoluted antiracist ideas, we blame their stupidity rather than our stupid lack of clarity. When we transform people and do not show them an avenue of support, we blame their lack of commitment rather than our lack of guidance. When the politician we supported does not change racist policy, we blame the intractability of racism rather than our support of the wrong politician. When we fail to gain support for a protest, we blame the fearful rather than our alienating presentation. When the protest fails, we blame racist power rather than our flawed protest. When our policy does not produce racial equity, we blame the people for not taking advantage of the new opportunity, not our flawed policy solution. The failure doctrine avoids the mirror of self-blame. The failure doctrine begets failure. The failure doctrine begets racism. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document ... The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences. ~ Thomas Sowell

As graduation loomed, I had a nagging sense that there was still far too much unresolved for me, that I wasn't done studying. I applied for a master's in English literature at Stanford and was accepted into the program. I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life's meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form. It was the relational aspect of humans - i.e., "human relationality" - that undergirded meaning. Yet somehow, this process existed in brains and bodies, subject to their own physiologic imperatives, prone to breaking and failing. There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced - of passion, of hunger, of love - bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats. At Stanford, I had the good ~ Paul Kalanithi

In matters of potential suffering, a single 200,000 years old human being stood against a 550 million years old octopus - acutely aware of its suffering, yet unable to do much to alleviate its misery - is the structural equivalent of comparing the convoluted majesty of the International Space Station to a child's paper and stick kite, and to then stand the octopus against the far more ancient 1.5 billion years old protozoa is to weigh the complexity of the kite to a dust mote caught up in a lazy afternoon breeze. ~ John Zande

But I'd much rather face a dozen assassins like LaFleur any night than deal with something as tricky, convoluted, and fragile as my feelings. ~ Jennifer Estep

Sometimes the routes leading to feelings of anger are so convoluted and circuitous that it takes enormous skill to discern their original source, or fountainhead. But regardless of the reason for or the source of the anger or the relative ease or complexity in perceiving either the anger or its source - everybody, but everybody, gets angry. ~ Theodore Isaac Rubin

What sort of signal does a college diploma send to a potential employer? That its holder is willing and able to complete all sorts of drawn-out, convoluted tasks - and, ~ Steven D. Levitt

The simple equations that generate the convoluted Mandelbrot fractal have been called the wittiest remarks ever made. ~ John Allen Paulos

The feelings I had for my sister were jumbled together, like the monkeys in a barrel game we'd had as children. All the brightly colored monkeys with their curved arms tangled and entwined, so convoluted that it was almost impossible to separate them. ~ Karen White

You'll soon run through the whole of the seven dwarfs. You start dating and it'll be Bashful and Happy you're imitating. Then you start fucking the guy and you'll turn into Sleepy. Then it's just a matter of time before you have a fight and it'll be Grumpy. Then the relationship will be all over and you'll be wiser at the end of it
all, just like Doc."
I shook my head at his convoluted thinking. "What about poor Sneezy?"
Charlie looked at me like I was dumb. "It was an analogy, dude! Work with me here. No analogy is perfect. Just like you're no Snow White and the poor guy you're mooning over is no Prince Charming. ~ Renae Kaye

The first treatise on the interior of the body, which is to say, the treatise that gave the body an interior , written by Henri De Mondeville in the fourteenth century, argues that the body is a house, the house of the soul, which like any house can only be maintained as such by constant surveillance of its openings. The woman's body is seen as an inadequate enclosure because its boundaries are convoluted. While it is made of the same material as a man's body, it has ben turned inside out. Her house has been disordered, leaving its walls full of openings. Consequently, she must always occupy a second house, a building to protect her soul. Gradually this sense of vulnerability to the exterior was extended to all bodies which were then subjected to a kind of supervision traditionally given to the woman. The classical argument about her lack of self-control had been generalized. ~ Mark Wigley

I did get myself into this. Somehow, in some convoluted way, it's what I've been looking for in my life. How else did I come to be here? We create our lives. I don't fully understand why, but little by little I get that somehow I've wanted something like this to happen. I've been looking for adventure, and I've found it. ~ Aron Ralston

A convoluted noir infused extravaganza clogged with humans but also a bizarre cluster of unique creatures and provocative human chimeras customized via genetic manipulation and body augmentation, a reverie of alluring cultural ferment and cyberdelic imagery making a grand display ~ Unknown

In a famous hoax, physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article to a leading journal of cultural studies purporting to describe how quantum gravity could produce a "liberatory postmodern science." The article, which parodied the convoluted style of argument in the fashionable academic world of cultural studies, was promptly published by the editors. Sokal announced that his intention was to test the intellectual standards of the discipline by checking whether the journal would publish a piece "liberally salted with nonsense." Sokal, "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," April 15, 1996, ~ Dani Rodrik

Moby-Dick is a long, grueling, convoluted graft. And yet, as soon as I completed it, once I could hold it at arm's length and admire its intricacy and design, I knew Moby-Dick was obviously, uncannily, a masterwork. It wormed into my subconsious; I dreamed about it for nights afterwards. Whereas when I finished The Da Vinci Code, which had taken little less than twelve hours from cover to cover, I chicked it aside and thought: wow - I really ought to read something good. ~ Andy Miller

Confession is good for the soul, they say. I'd imagine this is true. But my sins were too convoluted. And from the little I understand
too damning. ~ Kate Karyus Quinn

It adds up, but I deem it all necessary, even the camera gear. I enjoy photographing the otherworldly colors and shapes presented in the convoluted depths of slot canyons and the prehistoric artwork preserved in their alcoves. ~ Aron Ralston

I guess maybe my art can be said to be a protest. I see things a certain way, and as an artist I'm privileged in that arena to protest or say publicly what I'm thinking about. Maybe the strongest work I've done is because it was done with indignation. Considering myself as a feminist, I don't want my work to be a reaction to what male art might be or what art with a capital A would be. I just want it to be art. In a convoluted way, I am protesting- protesting the usual way art is looked at, being shoved into a period or category. ~ Nancy Spero

There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. ~ O. Henry

Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they've known since childhood ... ... . They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simple minded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple. ~ Jack Welch

His nose was his most distinctive feature: curved like a scimitar at the top but bent flat at the tip, and with the bone of the bridge cut like a diamond
in short, a nose out of a folktale, the sort of sizable, convoluted, intricately turned nose that, for many centuries, confronted though they have been by every imaginable hardship, the Jews have never stopped making. ~ Philip Roth

You say that about everything," I complained, trailing after him. "Everything is a long story, too long to tell me. I suppose after two hundred years, or whatever, things get a little convoluted, but can't you paraphrase? How do you know the Rectors?"
When we rounded the corner, it became apparent there wouldn't be time for any stories at all, paraphrased or not. Not because the gray clouds that were hanging so threateningly overhead had burst open, the way I was half expecting them to, but because the family we'd seen earlier, along with Mr. Smith and the people holding the clipboards, were climbing into their various vehicles in the parking lot right in front of us.
It shouldn't have been a big deal. We were just an ordinary young couple, taking a late afternoon stroll through the cemetery.
I'd forgotten that, due to the "vandalism" that had occurred there earlier in the week, the cemetery gates (which John had kicked apart in a fit of temper) had been ordered locked twenty-four hours a day by the chief of police.
So it kind of was a big deal.
Still, that didn't explain why one of the women-the grandmother, if her gray hair was any indication-took one look at my face, made the sign of the cross, cried, "Dios mio!" then passed out cold right in front of us. ~ Meg Cabot

What kind of hellish punishment does Lev have planned if he needs the females' crazy magic moon water? Nothing Talon has ever heard of but the gryphon is a recluse and stories about him keep children from sneaking out alone; a terribly convoluted mixture of the rogue army attack on his eyrie, death, and the name Lev, one of the few survivors mean enough to live through it. ~ Elizabeth Munro

But pinning a size on an earthquake remains such a convoluted process that seismologists break out in a sweat trying to explain it to a layperson. ~ Sandi Doughton

I wrote code that merely did what it was supposed to do. Simon's solutions were rapid and weird - convoluted, sometimes in a pointless way, often in a way that looked pointless until you saw how elegant it was. ~ Austin Grossman

She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she kept her convoluted and confused thoughts to herself. He was her light in the darkness, but she was unsure if it was actual love or a form of Stockholm syndrome. ~ Emmie White

the plot was becoming more and more convoluted, but also more exciting. ~ Shane Stadler

I'm so agitated, so agitated
Run through a washing machine, agitated
I'm so agitated, I'm so convoluted
I don't know what I know, but I'd just like to shoot it ~ The Electric Eels

Why do smart people exist, if not to figure out convoluted problems? ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Catch-22 exemplifies the dilemma of rational actors caught up within the machinations of vast, irrational systems. Within such systems, even rational responses lead to irrational outcomes. The individual is aware of the irrationality but loses all power to act in their own interest. Faced with the roiling tide of information, we attempt to gain some kind of control over the world by telling stories about it: we attempt to master it through narratives. These narratives are inherently simplifications, because no one story can account for everything that's happening; the world is too complex for simple stories. Instead of accepting this, the stories become ever more baroque and bifurcated, ever more convoluted and open-ended. Thus paranoia in an age of network excess produces a feedback loop: the failure to comprehend a complex world leads to the demand for more and more information, which only further clouds our understanding - revealing more and more complexity that must be accounted for by ever more byzantine theories of the world. More information produces not more clarity, but more confusion. ~ James Bridle

You get to a point in life where it suddenly occurs to you that you don't need all the things you once thought you did
that it's really, well, convoluted. My life feels overblown sometimes, and I don't want it to be. I want it to be streamlined. So I'm living a much more unscripted life now than I have in a long time. ~ Jennifer Lopez

When faced with a chaotic and convoluted situation, one always thinks that it will take centuries to sort it out. Suddenly a man appears and as if by magic, the tree we thought was doomed takes on new life and starts bearing leaves and fruits and giving shade. (Shireen in Samarkand) ~ Amin Maalouf

our journey toward truth is often a winding and convoluted path and what we find at the end is not always the truth we expected at the beginning of the journey. ~ Christian Scharen

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. ~ Frank Herbert

The scenario where the sprawling anti-hero gets his comeuppance and the champion walks off into the sunset with his arm around the prize, usually a woman, is a pleasing one. This media personification of what a hero is all about used to be the common norm. Examining past events can confirm this convoluted outlook that sees the baddie being portrayed as some sort of evil manifestation sent to cause havoc by any means possible. ~ Stephen Richards

In a long story like 'Weathercraft,' it becomes kind of convoluted. It can become perhaps difficult to remember what led up to whatever point you're at. I worried a little bit about people being able to keep the shape of the story in their heads while they were reading it, and not wonder how they got wherever they were. ~ Jim Woodring

Maybe it begins the day you pledge allegiance,
face the flag and suddenly clutch your left clavicle
because you find a tender puff of breast
where yesterday your heart was

Or maybe it happens later when you're walking home
from school and they rush you on the street--
those boys who reach out fast, disgrace your blouse
with rubs of dirt, their laughter
stinging hot against your face.
And you bite your rage, swallow your tears
because the fact is, your territory's up for grabs
and somehow it's your own damned fault.

And one day you stand at your mirror
armed with jars and razor blades against the scents
and grasses of your shameless bleeding body,
and you see what you've become--a freak
manufactured to disguise the real one,
the one who sometimes still recalls your innocence,
the time before you became a dirty joke.

And maybe it begins to end the day
you try against the odds to love yourself again.
Even though you know the worst thing
you can call someone is cunt,
you try to love the flesh and fur you are,
that convoluted, prehistoric flower,
petals dripping weeds and echoing
vaguely fragrant odors of the sea. ~ Marilyn Johnson

Non-Conformity
The path of non-conformity
never takes the shortest distance between two points.
It's convoluted like our prefrontal cortex. ~ Beryl Dov

Truth was only a shifting fog to them, to be burned off by the light of their convoluted reasoning. Followers, ~ Terry Goodkind

The tedious and convoluted reasoning behind the Supreme Court's ongoing project to expunge all references to God from the public domain. ~ Benjamin Hart

... everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds. ~ Jane Wilson-Howarth

Now try these Drivetime talismans on for size: organized chaos ... wild discipline ... reverent blasphemy ... self-effacing grandiosity ... fanatic moderation ... selfish gifts ... twisted calm ... garish elegance ... insane poise ... ironic sincerity ... blasphemous prayers ... orgiastic lucidity ... aggressive sensitivity ... convoluted simplicity ... macho feminism. Homework Discuss what is wetter than water, stronger than love, and more exotic than trust. ~ Rob Brezsny

A four percent growth strategy means you fix a convoluted tax code. You get in and you change every aspect of regulations that are job killers. You get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something that doesn't suppress wages and kill jobs. ~ Jeb Bush

When I start writing, I'll have a vague concept or I'll just have a title, and the song just goes on its own direction. Usually it goes in many directions within each song. They get really convoluted sometimes. ~ Juliana Hatfield

Apple of My Eye is a twisted collection of short stories by Amy Grech, including the sexy and deadly title story that makes you want to stay home with the door locked and the lights on. Grech's stories are sinister, sneaky, convoluted and dangerous - and absolutely not to be missed!
- Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-Winning Author of
Ghost Road Blues and Dead Man's Song ~ Jonathan Maberry

I love every part of the book writing process from the excitement of the initial idea to weaving all the tiny elements of the story from the air. I draw my inspiration from the landscape around me, from quirky characters I meet and from the strange and convoluted thoughts that dance between my ears. ~ JoAnne Graham

Once upon a time, about 10 years ago, I thought maybe I could write a mystery series about a midwife in Elizabethan England. I had an elaborately convoluted title and an elaborately convoluted plotline, and at that point I got stupendously bored. ~ Deborah Harkness

A portion of guilt is standard issue for southern boys; our whole lives are convoluted, egregious apologies to our mothers because our fathers have made us such flawed husbands. ~ Pat Conroy

Your ability to solve complex problems may make you overthink simple problems, going for the convoluted answer and overlooking the simple, more obvious solution. ~ Anonymous

But Carroll's were more convoluted, and they struck me as funny in a new way:
1) Babies are illogical.
2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
3) Illogical persons are despised.
Therefore, babies cannot manage crocodiles.
And:
1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.
2) No modern poetry is free from affectation.
3) All of your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles.
4) No affected poetry is popular among people of taste.
5) Only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles.
Therefore, all your poems are uninteresting. ~ Steve Martin

She was truly a beautiful girl. I could feel a small polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all. ~ Haruki Murakami

I see. So you playacted the role of a rake who was only pretending to be in earnest, knowing you would come across as though you had the lowest of motives, when in fact, you were sincere?"
"Precisely."
She gave a short, wry laugh and shook her head at him. "Convoluted sir! You are a maze."
He shot her a sulky glance. "I thought you were going to say I was amazing."
"That, too," she admitted with a rueful smile, capturing his square chin between her fingertips. ~ Gaelen Foley

The fact is, the primary way that Ottawa and Washington deal with Native people is to ignore us. They know that the court system favors the powerful and the wealthy and the influential, and that, if we buy into the notion of an impartial justice system, tribes and bands can be forced through a long, convoluted, and expensive process designed to wear us down and bankrupt our economies.
Be good. Play by our rules. Don't cause a disturbance. ~ Thomas King

He shook his head, trying to shake the convoluted thoughts loose. He couldn't worry about it right now. Not about how Thomas felt, or how Quinn did, or even how he, himself did. They were where they were, and there were things to do. First and foremost, there was a baby to deliver. ~ Breeana Puttroff

Ken appeared, was taller than she, wanted her, was acceptable and accepted on all sides; similarly, nagging mathematical problems abruptly crack open. Foxy could find no fault with him, and this challenged her, touched off her stubborn defiant streak. She felt between his handsomeness and intelligence a contradiction that might develop into the convoluted humour of her Jew. Ken looked lika a rich boy and worked like a poor one. From Farmington, he was the only son of a Hartford laywer who never lost a case. Foxy came to imagine his birth as cool and painless, without a tear or outcry. Nothing puzzled him. There were unknowns, but no mysteries. ( ... ) He was better-looking, better-thinking, a better machine. ~ John Updike

The Supreme Court refuses to abandon its convoluted Lemon test. The Lemon test has created havoc, misunderstanding, and hostility toward religion. ~ Mathew Staver

These kids should be out drinking beer and seeing films and having panty raids and losing virginities and writhing to suggestive music, not making up long, sad, convoluted stories. ~ David Foster Wallace

I was aware that we were both silently making those inevitable comparisons, putting our relationship in context. She is more this and less that. He is better or worse in these ways. It is human nature to do this
unless its your first relationship, which might be the very reason that your first relationship feels special and remains forever sacred. But the older you get, the more cynical you become, and the more complicated and convoluted the exercise is. You begin to realize that nothing is perfect, that there are trade-offs and sacrifices. The worst is when someone in your past trumps the person in the present, and you think to yourself: if I'd known this, then maybe I wouldn't have let him go. ~ Emily Giffin

Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other person's back is turned or having other people parrot what they say. ~ Shoshannah Stern

As the ample Hedda, who disguised her ampleness behind a billow of yellow summer dress, told it, her life up 'til she hoisted this very bloody mary in her hand was a convoluted tale of bubbly love gone flat, fine talents unnoticed and similarly woeful bullshit. ~ Daniel Woodrell

I woke up this morning with the words clomping around in my head: "Truth does not become wisdom until the exact moment you're ready for it." No one can force it on you, even though everyone thinks they have a right to try. So the rest of us should just put a sock in it. Bug out. Leave everyone to discover their own truths, each in their own way, all in their own time. And go find our own wisdom. Which will happen. But not until that exact, excruciating Aha! moment when, at long last, confusing, convoluted truth becomes simple, crystal-clear wisdom. Because we're finally, gloriously, ready for it. Not a second before. ~ Lionel Fisher

There must be a way, I thought, that language of life as experienced-- of passion, of hunger, of love-- bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats. ~ Paul Kalanithi

The criminal mind is perverted and convoluted but almost invariably unimaginative,'he said as Molly came out in a fluster ~ M.R.C. Kasasian

There was one floor that was all gynecologists. They could tell by the remnants of weird optical contraptions- all the convoluted tools men use when they're searching for the source of their anxieties. ~ Carl Watson

Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off. ~ Clive Cussler

We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. ~ Natalie Cole

Data that did not fit the commonly accepted assumptions of a discipline would either be discounted or explained away for as long as possible. The more contradictions accumulated, the more convoluted the rationalizations became. 'In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty,' Kuhn wrote. But then, finally, someone came along who was willing to call a red spade a red spade. Crisis led to insight, and the old framework gave way to a new one. This is how great scientific discoveries or, to use the term Kuhn made so popular, 'paradigm shifts' took place. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

The journey back through the house, like all return journeys, felt shorter and less convoluted; the sense of knowing how long the tunnels were and where they ended up was reassuring ~ Lisa Jewell

Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple not as in an intestinal obstruction ~ Boris Pasternak

Already, the brain consumed more than a quarter of the body's blood supply ... an organ accounting for only a small percentage of body mass. If brains grew larger, and better, then perhaps they would consume more - perhaps so much that, like an infection, they would overrun their hosts and kill the bodies that transported them. Or perhaps, in their infinite cleverness, they would find a way to destroy themselves and each other. There were times when, as he [Stone] sat at State Department or Defense Department meetings, and looked around the table, he would see nothing more than a dozen gray, convoluted brains sitting on the table ... Just brains, sitting around, trying to decide how to outwit other brains, at other conference tables.
Idiotic. ~ Michael Crichton

Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It it a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and wilfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you'll believe a word of it. ~ Jonathan Barnes

Do you recognize it? Ajay asked Will. Three other guards started performing exactly the same strange, convoluted, synchronized dance steps, and it spread until twenty of them were moving along, when Will realized: Thriller? Correct! ~ Mark Frost

Once you get into the problem... you see that it's complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going, find the underlying problem, and come up with an elegant solution that works on every level. ~ George Beahm

In my experience, we are always trying to be good to ourselves, to be healthy and safe, but are often doing this in a convoluted way because it's the best way we know at that moment. As soon as we are ready to open to a healthier way, a path opens up before us and we find that we've always been standing on it. And alongside, and over, and underneath our path, are our herbal allies. ~ Robin Rose Bennett

The rails intersect and combine in complex and convoluted ways. There are sixteen platforms in total. In addition, there are two private rail lines, the Odakyu line and the Keio line, and three subway lines plugged in, as it were, from the side. It is a total maze. During rush hour, that maze transforms into a sea of humanity, a sea that foams up, rages, and roars as it surges toward the entrances and exits. Streams of people changing trains become entangled, giving rise to dangerous, swirling whirlpools. No prophet, no matter how righteous, could part that fierce, turbulent sea. ~ Haruki Murakami

I don't think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It's convoluted, for the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you. ~ Jeb Bush

"There is no analysis here," the most brutal of them wrote. Now I wonder if my papers lacked critical thought, or if it was really more about my inability/refusal to write in the convoluted style that they wanted me to. I remember the initial shock upon reading my peers' papers. I seriously could not understand them, and I couldn't understand why the writing had to be so unclear in order to be considered smart. ~ Mary J. Miller

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible. ~ Jane Austen

Whatever the surface appearances, most human beings come equipped with convoluted emotional machinery. With intimacy, the wreckage starts to show, damage rendered in the course of passions colliding like freight trains on the same track. ~ Sue Grafton

I don't want to make any general statements, but I feel like so many stories that are presented as being about humanity and human emotion are just so convoluted and overly dramatic and focus on these certain little things that are supposedly meaningful, but just don't really mean anything. ~ Ellar Coltrane

If we reward our children for doing the right things, or discipline for intentionally doing the wrong things, then we might be viewed as doing the right thing. On the other hand, we (or parents) might not fully grasp the right thing - as the "right thing" becomes convoluted in the mix of the time and period, the latest "grand experiment", and other influences of parenthood and childrearing. ~ H. Kirk Rainer

For all my dreams of complex new beginnings and convoluted endings, it can be as easy as this: a boy singing hymns again. ~ Kristin Hannah

We were not designed rationally, but are products of a convoluted history. ~ Neil Shubin

Nobody likes having a problem, but having a convoluted, bureaucratic one is even more galling. ~ David Sedaris

That left two possibilities, really.
Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had tried their best to understand, they'd made little or no progress and eventually given up; and Harry would do no better.
Or ...
Harry cracked his knuckles in determination, but they only made a quiet sort of clicking sound, rather than echoing ominously off the walls of Diagon Alley.
Possibility two: He'd be taking over the world.
Eventually. Perhaps not right away. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

After September 11, I wondered rhetorically midway through a column what we in the West are prepared to die for, and got a convoluted e-mail back from a French professor explaining that the fact that Europeans weren't prepared to die for anything was the best evidence of their superiority: they were building a post-historical utopia - a Europe it would not be necessary to die for. But sometimes you die anyway. ~ Mark Steyn

Many seducers clutter the simple message of the gospel with legalistic additions, with convoluted attempts to legitimize moral compromise, and with psychological theories that turn churches into relational support groups instead of houses of worship. ~ Charles R. Swindoll