Explain Quotes

His heart hurt with the wanting of it, the hurt no less painful for being difficult to explain. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

MiSSS SScott
points to the numbers
along the wall.
I count up to twenty.
The class claps
on its own.
I'm furious,
unable to explain
I already learned
fractions and how to purify water.
So this is what dumb feels like. I hate, hate,
hate it. ~ Thanhha Lai

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas

Anybody that ties you to a chair at gunpoint is a bad guy. Do I really need to explain this? ~ Susan Ee

The bar was crowded with theorizing Sherlockians, who in the absence of any actual evidence had created grand machinations to explain the crime. Minor points of canonical disagreement became reasons for brutal murder. Some tried to piece together their theories in small groups, hoping that with enough brainpower and expertise they might arrive at a solution. Others jumped straight over the "investigation" phase and landed square at the end of the story they were creating, instantly accusing the man across the table of some vile treachery. And, moreover, actually employing phrases like "vile treachery" in doing so. Everyone was a suspect. But at the world's largest Sherlockian gathering, everyone was a detective as well. ~ Graham Moore

There was no one to whom he could explain that in order to survive he needed to be at altitude, a Himalayan altitude, so he might breathe. ~ Anita Desai

Suppose that you want to teach the 'cat' concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying 'kitty' each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. ~ Ralph P. Boas, Jr.

In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That's my idea. ~ Dave Hickey

If you find you are not understanding my explaination for a joke, hit F5 on your browser and the page will refresh and I will explain it again. ~ Ryan North

But I would like to reach the point where I could cut up an illustrated magazine at random and see to it that the parts would each become a painting. I cannot properly explain it right now. Already now I am searching for the most boring and irrelevant photo material that I can find. And I would like to get to the point soon where this determined irrelevance could be retained, in favor of something that would be covered up otherwise by artifice. ~ Gerhard Richter

If they survive, today's children will inherit a world that our fathers and grandfathers have ravaged, where the seas are acidic cesspools that the whales have fled, where rain forests are Indian memories never to return, and where human greed has plundered Mother Earth's innards and turned human genes into factories for profit. They will inherit a diminished planet where fresh water is increasingly rare, and where fresh air is a commodity ... We live in a world that fears and hates its young. How else can one explain the bequest of such a foul, polluted, and hollow inheritance? ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

Every day I run into people who don't know what I do. And even after I explain it they still don't know what I do. So now I can just say, 'Pick up the Locas book!' And that tells them all. ~ Jaime Hernandez

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. ~ Charles Dickens

I think I would really lay down and die. Music comes from a very primal, twisted place. When a person sings, their body, their mouth, their eyes, their words, their voice says all these unspeakable things that you really can't explain but that mean something anyway. People are completely transformed when they sing; people look like that when they sing or when they make love. But it's a weird thing - at the end of the night I feel strange, because I feel I've told everybody all my secrets. ~ Jeff Buckley

The Way It Is

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

~ William Stafford ~ ~ William Stafford

Anyway, if you really want to see the Arpanet as the origin of the internet, please explain why the government sat on it for thirty years and did almost nothing with it until it was effectively privatised in the 1990s, with explosive results. ~ Matt Ridley

Explanations can't explain love--only deep perception can do that. ~ Debasish Mridha

The gift of a writer as good as Dickens is not to explain everything; that way, the reader has, in terms of their imagination, somewhere to go. ~ Ronald Frame

Ever since I've been boxing, it's always been the case that when I go inside the ring a switch goes off and my attitude changes totally from the person I am outside it. I really can't explain why or how. ~ Oscar De La Hoya

They talk too much for me. They have worries, aims, desires, that I cannot understand. I often sit with one of them in the little beer garden and try to explain to him that this is really the only thing: just to sit quietly, like this. They understand of course, they agree, they may even feel it so too, but only with words, only with words, yes, that is it--they feel it, but always with only half of themselves, the rest of their being is taken up with other things, they are so divided in themselves that none feels it with his whole; I cannot even say myself exactly what I mean. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

I tried to find a language for the film - not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain. I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That's what I try to do all the time. ~ Agnes Varda

If a group of atoms in the presence of energy falls into a stable pattern it will tend to stay that way. The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition. From this, of course, it does not follow that you can explain the existence of entities as complex as man by exactly the same principles on their own. It is no good taking the right number of atoms and shaking them together with some external energy till they happen to fall into the right pattern, and out drops Adam! ~ Richard Dawkins

Connor pockets his cell. "Lily," he says. "If I wanted to date for a last name, I'd have a girl on my arm every single day. I would never be single." He leans forward. "I promise you, that my intentions are pure. And I think it's sweet you're looking out for Rose, but she's more than capable of taking care of herself, which is one of the many reasons why I want to pursue her." "What's another reason?" I test him. He smiles. "I won't have to taxingly explain to her menu items in a real French restaurant." He knows she's fluent? "I won't have to explain financial statements or dividends. I'll be able to discuss anything and everything in the world, and she'll have an answer. ~ Krista Ritchie

Some patients do seem to have some kind of post-infection meltdown. They don't still have an infection any more in any sense that we understand infection. But someone is going to have to explain these patients to me someday. ~ Mark Crislip

It' hard to explain depression to people who haven't suffered from it. It is like explaining life on Earth to an alien. The reference points just aren't there. You have to resort to metaphors. ~ Matt Haig

The door was locked - another difficult detail to explain away if we were caught inside. Sighing, I pulled my picks from my bag and got to work.
"To think," Watson said, "I used to wonder why girls carried purses."
"We need somewhere to keep our mace." I smiled as the lock shifted and gave under my hands. "Will you keep watch on the landing? Think of some suitable explanation if we're caught."
He leaned to look inside. "As long as your plan isn't to go out that window," he said, taking in the four-story view.
"My father trained me for every eventuality," I said, and left the door cracked as I slipped inside. ~ Brittany Cavallaro

But that which remains for ever incomprehensible is the initial horror, the horror imposed on each of us, of having to live, and that is a mystery no philosophy can explain. ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn't explain why I'm lonely. ~ Mort Sahl

When you explain to people how this country [US] works, because we have a presidential single member district system there is no way to start a third party without injuring your friends that is if you start a liberal party you are going to elect conservatives and vice versa. ~ William Domhoff

The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations. In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work. If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. ~ Carl Sagan

But music is reflection of self, we just explain it, and then we get our
checks in the mail. ~ Eminem

Is the sun the biggest object in space?" he asked me in an even, determined voice. I had to think about that one for all of a split second before I shook my head, confused at what he was asking. "No." "How do you explain to the sun that there are stars far away that dwarf it?" He lowered his face to mine. "I've liked you from the moment I met you." He blinked, his eyebrows knitting together in surprise. "Damn, Gaby. I'm fucking crazy about you. ~ Mariana Zapata

I am tempted to find reason and justice in the fact that he died as violently and indecently as he lived. But that is too ingenuous a way out. It does not explain Dimitrios; it only apologizes for him. Special sorts of conditions must exist for the creation of the special sort of criminal that he typified ... all I do know is that while might is right, while chaos and anarchy masquerade as order and enlightenment, those conditions will obtain. ~ Eric Ambler

There is always a man eager to explain my mental illness to me. They all do it so confidently, motioning to their Hemingway and Bukowski bookshelf as they compare my depression to their late-night loneliness. There is always someone that rejected them that they equate their sadness to and a bottle of gin (or a song playing, or a movie) close by that they refer to as their cure. Somehow, every soft confession of my Crazy that I hand to them turns into them pulling out pieces of themselves to prove how it really is in my head.

So many dudes I've dated have faces like doctors ready to institutionalize
and love my crazy (but only on Friday nights.)

They tell their friends about my impulsive decision making and how I "get them" more than anyone they've ever met but leave out my staring off in silence for hours and the self-inflicted bruises on my cheeks.

None of them want to acknowledge a crazy they can't cure.

They want a crazy that fits well into a trope and gives them a chance to play Hero. And they always love a Crazy that provides them material to write about.

Truth is they love me best as a cigarette cloud of impossibility, with my lipstick applied perfectly and my Crazy only being pulled out when their life needs a little spice.

They don't want me dirty, having not left my bed for days. Not diseased. Not real.

So they invite me over when they're going through writer's block but don't answer m ~ Lora Mathis

By sort of combining the research of a lot of smart people, I came up with an equation for dread [dread=uncontrollability+unfamiliarity+imaginability+suffering+scale of destruction+unfairness]. The dread equation is a simplification, but it's a way to explain why we fear something so much when it is so unlikely. Part of it is the lack of control. That's why we're more scared of plane crashes than car crashes even though we know rationally which is more dangerous. ~ Amanda Ripley

You can't explain what it is about the sound of Sinatra's voice," Feinstein says. "I mean, you can try, and you can get very poetic in describing it. But there is something there that is transcendent, that simply exists in his instrument. He developed it, he honed it, he understood it himself, he knew what he could do, and he used it to his best advantage. That was something that people responded to. ~ James Kaplan

Fang and I searched in every way we could think of and found a million institutes of one kind or another, in Manhattan and throughout New York state, but none of them seemed promising. My favorite? The Institute for Realizing Your Pet's Inner Potential. Anyone who can explain that to me, drop a line. ~ James Patterson

To explain the Use of Education, no Method can be more effectual, than to shew what dull Mistakes and silly Notions Men are apt to be led into for Want of it. These Mistakes are so numerous, that if we were to undertake to divulge all the Errors that Men of no Knowledge in the Sciences labour under, the shortest Way would be to publish a compleat System of Natural Philosophy, which Learning, as it may be acquired by reading the different Books, which have already been wrote upon that Subject, in this Aera of the Sciences, such an Undertaking would be quite needless at this Time, even supposing the Author capable of that laborious Work. If the following Sheets do but serve to divest Men of some of those unreasonable Obstinacies with which they and their Forefathers have long been prepossessed, the Time will be well laid out, both of the Writer and Reader. ~ Stephen Fovargue

But finally, when they stopped to sleep, not bothering with a tent, just bedding down in a hollow they'd trampled in the tall grass with their boots, Arin spoke. He slid a hand under her tunic to touch her bare back, then stopped. "Is this all right?"
She wanted to explain that she hadn't thought she'd ever bear anyone's touch on her scarred back, that it should revolt him and revolt her. Yet his touch made her feel soft and new. "Yes."
He pushed the shirt up, seeking the lash marks, tracing their length. She let herself feel it, and shivered, and thought of nothing. But a tension grew. He was still, but for his hand.
Kestrel said, "What's wrong?"
"Your life would have been easier if you had married the Valorian prince."
She drew herself up so that she could face him. The scent of black powder clung to them both. His skin smelled like a blown-out candle. "But not better," she said. ~ Marie Rutkoski

If any scientist wants to argue that subjective experiences are irrelevant, their challenge is to explain why torture or rape are wrong without reference to any subjective experience. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

And I felt comfort. Finally. All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this. I knew, deep down, it was more complicated than that, but watching Jason, I was hopeful. He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I had to wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me. So I moved myself closer to him, and I'd been there ever since. ~ Sarah Dessen

I just think the American people had expected that the President of the United States would be able to describe what he's going to do in the next four years, but he can't. He can't even explain what he's done in the last four years. ~ Mitt Romney

The first mistake is trying to explain morality to a terrorist. Like trying to teach a rock to drive. It is impossible. ~ Greg Gutfeld

I have always had this failing - that I cannot explain myself, as I have said, except at the cost of many words. ~ Teresa Of Avila

We hold ourselves back not just out of fear of seeming too aggressive but also by underestimating our abilities. Ask a woman to explain why she's successful and she'll credit luck, hard work, and help from others. Ask a man the same question and he's likely to explain, or at least think, "C'mon, I'm awesome!"4 ~ Sheryl Sandberg

I stick to Raffe as close as I can manage without having to explain why I'm hugging his back. ~ Susan Ee

One time Clu tried to explain it to me," Enos continued. "'Sometimes,' he said, 'you don't want to escape the world; sometimes you want to escape yourself.' " He cocked his head. "Do you believe that?" "Not really," Myron said. "Like a lot of cute phrases, it sounds good. But it also sounds like a load of self-rationalization. ~ Harlan Coben

To many, mathematics is a collection of theorems. For me, mathematics is a collection of examples; a theorem is a statement about a collection of examples and the purpose of proving theorems is to classify and explain the examples ... ~ John B. Conway

HE was standing across the street, staring at her with a look of shock and dismay. One look in Oliver's eyes and she knew he knew. But how? How could he have known? The'd been so careful to keep their love a secret. The grief etched all over his face was too much to bear. Schuyler felt the words catch in her throat as she crossed the stree to stand in front of him. "Ollie ... it's not ... " Oliver shot her a look of pure hatred, turned on his heel and began to run away. "OLIVER, please,let me explain.. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

I'm very honest in my music and I'm often asked to explain the lyrics; as an introvert, I find that quite hard. And I always wear high heels on stage, which can be painful. ~ Natasha Bedingfield

Thou shalt not believe something just because you can explain it. ~ Arthur Kornberg

I'd always thought it was gaudy, but standing there watching him beside the gold and glass shrine, I realised that his was a candlelight faith. It didn't work in the clear unforgiving light in London or Scandinavia, where even the dust in the cathedrals showed. But in the warm dimness and the shadows, what would have been tasteless at home made sense. The shrine looked like an oil painting made into real substance. So did he. England's was a reading religion, one it was difficult to understand at the bleak unimpressive first glance, one that needed books to explain itself. But his was images and images, the same as the old stages, in a place where not everyone could read and good light was expensive. ~ Natasha Pulley

Dear Diary,
Oh, it's all too much to explain and you wouldn't believe it anyway. I'm going to bed.
Bonnie ~ L.J.Smith

It has long been known that the chemical atomic weight of hydrogen was greater than one-quarter of that of helium, but so long as fractional weights were general there was no particular need to explain this fact, nor could any definite conclusions be drawn from it. ~ Francis William Aston

I tend to explain my songs. ~ Nneka

People now ask me if I'm passing the torch. I always explain that no, I'm keeping my torch, thank you very much. And I'm using it to light the torches of others.

Because the truth is that the old image of one person with a torch is part of the problem, not the solution. We each need a torch if we are to see where we're going.

And together, we create so much more light. ~ Gloria Steinem

This is apparently a little promotional ¶ where we're supposed to explain "how and why we came to" the subject of our GD series book (the stuff in quotations is the editor's words). The overall idea is to humanize the series and make the books and their subjects seem warmer and more accessible. So that people will be more apt to buy the books. I'm pretty sure this is how it works. The obvious objection to such promotional ¶s is that, if the books are any good at all, then the writers' interest and investment in their subjects will be so resoundingly obvious in the texts themselves that these little pseudo-intimate Why I Cared Enough About Transfinite Math and Where It Came From to Spend a Year Writing a Book About It blurblets are unnecessary; whereas, if the books aren't any good, it's hard to see how my telling somebody that as a child I used to cook up what amounted to simplistic versions of Zeno's Dichotomy and ruminate on them until I literally made myself sick, or that I once almost flunked a basic calc course and have seethed with dislike for conventional higher-math education ever since, or that the ontology and grammar of abstractions have always struck me as one of the most breathtaking problems in human consciousness - how any such stuff will help. The logic of this objection seems airtight to me. In fact, the only way the objection doesn't apply is if these ¶s are really nothing more than disguised ad copy, in which case I don't see why anyone reading them should ~ David Foster Wallace

I explain my gender by saying I am happiest on the road when I'm not here or there, but in between, that yellow line coming down the center of it all like a goddamn sunbeam. ~ Andrea Gibson

I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."
"It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.
"That doesn't make any sense, you see - " he started to explain.
"Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend," the bird replied haughtily.
"But I didn't mean - " insisted Milo.
"Of course you're mean," interrupted the bird, closing the eye that had been open and opening the one that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."
"Well, I thought that by - " he tried again desperately.
"That's a different story," interjected the bird a bit more amiably. "If you want to buy, I'm sure I can arrange to sell, but with what you're doing you'll probably end up in a cell anyway."
"That doesn't seem right," said Milo helplessly, for, with the bird taking everything the wrong way, he hardly knew what he was saying.
"Agreed," said the bird, with a sharp click of his beak, "but neither is it left, although if I were you I would have left a long time ago. ~ Norton Juster

Then there's the way you krazak your G'ardrgh," said Corporal Littlebottom. "I won't even ask," said Vimes. "I'm afraid I can't explain in any case," said Cheery. ~ Terry Pratchett

It is often too easy to explain a novel idea to a few enlightened persons with a few words. But to enlighten about the same to many people, too many words are often required ~ Anuj

You don't have to worry about me pressuring you. You say stop, we stop." That sums it up without me having to over explain. "But I'll never complain if you cop a feel above or below. ~ Katie McGarry

Whether in private debate or in public, any attempt I made to explain how the Black Muslim movement came about, and how it has achieved such force, was met with a blankness that revealed the little connection that the liberals' attitudes have with their perceptions or their lives, or even their knowledge - revealed, in fact, that they could deal with the Negro as a symbol or a victim but had no sense of him as a man. ~ James Baldwin

What we can do is to explain as clearly as possible what the benefits would be of him going down one path, and what the potential consequences would be if he chooses another path. ~ Mitchell Reiss

The denier that ID [intelligent design] is science faces the following dilemma. Either he admits that the intervention of such a designer is possible, or he does not. If he does not, he must explain why that belief is more scientific than the belief that a designer is possible. If on the other hand he believes that a designer is possible, then he can argue that the evidence is overwhelmingly against the actions of such a designer, but he cannot say that someone who offers evidence on the other side is doing something of a fundamentally different kind. All he can say about that person is that he is scientifically mistaken. ~ Thomas Nagel

It's not just that,' she said, trying to explain in a way he would understand. 'My life - any lady's life - is made up of morning calls, and musicales, and balls. I would be thrown out of society. No one would receive me or send invitations. That's what it means to be ruined. ~ Eloisa James

Corinne suggested a different reason, indicating that her dying father had expressed concern about Theodore's intimacy with Edith, given Charles Carow's fiscal and temperamental instability. If Theodore discussed the issue with Edith that night, he might well have triggered the volatility that he would obscurely explain to Bamie as a clash of tempers "that were far from being of the best. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

By then I had moved often enough not to have the usual illusions about a clean slate or a fresh start or a new life. I knew that I could not escape myself. And the idea of beginning again, with no furniture and no friends, was exhausting. So my happiness then is hard to explain. I am tempted now to believe that entering the life one is meant to inhabit is a thrilling sensation and that is all. ~ Eula Biss

I'd given up trying to explain Hobie to Boris: the house, the workshop, his thoughtful way of listening (...) but more than anything a sort of pleasing atmosphere of mind: foggy, autumnal, a mild and welcoming micro-climate that made me feel safe and comfortable in his company. ~ Donna Tartt

I can't actually explain why my lines got shorter, but they did. Just as I can't explain why my early poems were 'all image' and my current ones are relatively abstract. The sense of the line changed with the theme, somehow my ear (or brain or heart/mind) fell in love with a short line and very very simple words. ~ Gregory Orr

I loved Roy Acuff with all my heart, and I never dreamed I'd be able to meet him or see him onstage, or especially become good friends with him. For all this to happen, it's hard to explain what a dream this is when you love something as much as I love traditional country music. ~ George Jones

Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search.

"And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end?"

I shrugged.

"You see?"

He leaned back. He smiled.

"When you come to the end, that's where God begins. ~ Mitch Albom

By the close of 2015, the queen had visited 128 countries. Her most popular destination was Canada (27 visits), followed by Australia (18 visits). When asked to explain her desire to explore, Elizabeth reportedly had a simple yet logical explanation. "I have to be seen to be believed. ~ The Editors Of LIFE

But nobody yet had been able to dig down to what was most captivating about her: this was the mysterious ability of her soul to apprehend in life only that which had once attracted and tormented her in childhood, the time when the soul's instinct is infallible; to seek out the amusing and the touching: to feel constantly an intolerable, tender pity for the creature whose life is helpless and unhappy; to feel across hundreds of miles that somewhere in Sicily a thin-legged little donkey with a shaggy belly is being brutally beaten. Whenever she did come across a creature that was being hurt, she experienced a kind of legendary eclipse - when inexplicable night comes down and ash flies and blood appears on the walls - and it seemed that if at once, at once, she did not help, did not cut short another's torture (the existence of which it was absolutely impossible to explain in a world so conducive to happiness), her heart would not stand it, and she would die. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country ... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away ... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing. ~ Edward Everett

Magic is antiphysics, so it can't really exist. But is shares one thing with science. I can explain the principle behind a good science experiment in 15 seconds; the same way with magic. ~ Koji Nakanishi

To tell about him, one should be French, because only the people of that nation manage to explain to others what they don't understand themselves. ~ Nikolai Leskov

Hmmm. Odd. Okay." He took Nick's hand.
Nick pulled back. "Dude, don't touch me."
"Why not?"
Why not? Really? He had to explain stranger-danger and personal space? Where did this guy live that he didn't understand grabbing another dude's body parts without an invitation was a first class ticket to a major butt-whipping event.
"Look, I don't know you, and we're not dating. So keep your hands off me."
Again with the annoyed noise. "Then how can I lead you if I can't touch you when you can't see?"
"How 'bout you don't lead me anywhere?" Nick was beginning to like the darkness. Unlike Asmodeus, it was quiet and rather peaceful. And it definitely didn't give him a headache.
"But you said you couldn't see."
Nick was aghast at the way this guy's mind worked. "That doesn't mean you can touch me."
"I'm so confused. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, and that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of an illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery. ~ Joseph Heller

Dear Oscar

I don't know how to say this any other way but, you see, I need to explain something. I can't stop thinking about that night when you rescued Barney with you tart – and how good and kind I realise you've always been. It wasn't until this morning when you sent me an apple tart of my own that I finally knew what it is that I have to tell you.
The timing is pretty terrible, but, you see, the reason I haven't wanted to go away is because I've wanted to stay here, and the reason I've wanted to stay here is because of you.
I've nothing against New Zealand or anything but because of how I feel, specifically about you, the whole world looks different.
I don't know whether it's because of everything has got darker or lighter. I guess that depends on how you feel about me which is, I hope, the same.
So anyways, look, you've convinced me that I should, as you say 'embrace the adventure' so that is what I have decided to do. It was the taste of you apple tart that finally made up my mind to give this my all. But I need to know you'll be here when I come back.
I love you Oscar Dunleavy.
I've been falling in love with you since that day we first met.
I need to have some idea about whether you feel the same way about me. Send me a sign.
Anything will do.
Love,
Meg ~ Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

He's not like any other guy I've dated or crushed on. And while he's capable of making my blood boil like no one else, I feel a magnetic pull toward him that I can't explain. ~ K.A. Tucker

The first item was fighting under the name 'Crostini of Mealed Tarroce, with Benatore Potatoes' and weighed in at an impressive twelve pounds sixty-five. The Ralph Lauren blonde came over and asked me if I needed any help with the menu, and I asked her to explain what potatoes were. She didn't laugh. ~ Hugh Laurie

The older I get, the more I believe in what I can't explain or understand, even more than the things that are explainable and understandable. ~ Lillian Gish

What we mean when speaking of "myth" in general is story, the ability of story to explain ourselves to ourselves in ways that physics, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry - all very highly useful and informative in their own right - can't. ~ Thomas C. Foster

The fact is, there are a couple of years he may not have paid any taxes. Maybe he's concerned about that. But if it's going to come out, he needs to get it out now so he has a couple of months to explain it. ~ Joe Scarborough

Luz Castro "And then i explain that the world did know and remained silent. and that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. NEUTRALITY HELPS THE OPPRESSOR, NEVER THE VICTIM. SILENCE ENCOURAGES THE TORMENTOR, NEVER THE TORMENTED. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must- at that moment- become the center of the universe." Elie Wiesel (from his speech when given the Nobel Peace Prize.) ~ Elie Wiesel

We are by the river bank. The river is very, very low. Almost dry. But mostly is wet stones. Grey on the outside. We walk on the stones for awhile. You pick up a stone and crash it onto the others. As it breaks, it is quite wet inside and is very colorful, very pretty. I pick up a stone and break it and run toward the pieces to see the colors. They are beautiful. I laugh and bring the pieces back to you and you are doing the same with your pieces. We keep on crashing stones for hours, anxious to see the beautiful new colors. We are playing. The playfulness of our activity does not presuppose that it is a particular form of play with its own rules. Rather the attitude that carries us through the activity, a playful attitude, turns the activity into play. Our activity has no rules, though it is certainly intentional activity and we both understand what we are doing. The playfulness that gives meaning to our activity includes uncertainty, but in this case the uncertainty is an openness to surprise. This is a particular metaphysical attitude that does not expect the world to be neatly packaged, ruly. Rules may fail to explain what we are doing. We are not self-important, we are not fixed in particular constructions of ourselves, which is part of saying that we are open to self-construction. We are not worried about competence. We are not wedded to a particular way of doing things. While playful we have not abandoned ourselves to, nor are we stuck in, any particular 'world.' We ar ~ María Lugones

My point taken further is that True and False (hence what we call "belief") play a poor, secondary role in human decisions; it is the payoff from the True and the False that dominates-and it is almost always asymmetric, with one consequence much bigger than the other, i.e., harboring positive and negative asymmetries (fragile or antifragile). Let me explain. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that.
I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all
except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him.
They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then. ~ Frank Miller

To admit we do not understand a phenomenon is not to admit the presence of the miraculous but merely, reasonably, to accept the limitations of human knowledge. God was invented to explain what our ancestors couldn't comprehend: the radiant mystery of being. The existence of the incomprehensible, however, is not a proof of god. ~ Salman Rushdie

The more perfect something is, the less it can be loved -- like a face, a body, voice, tone, color, or music itself. In playing a piece, don't strive for perfection: it will kill the piece in that it will prevent it from entering the emotions. That's the kind of advice you can't do anything with except perhaps later, when you don't even know you're doing it. It's part of the freeze of counterpoint.'
'I've never heard that expression,' she said.
'Stasis may be a better word -- the liberation of the space between two contradictions. Let me explain if I can. If two waves of equal but opposite amplitude meet in water, what do you get'
'Flat water.'
'In sound?'
'Silence.'
'Right. From agitation, peace, a perfection that you might have thought unobtainable from the clash of contradictory elements.'
'I think you've explained the magic of counterpoint very well.'
'Not really. It's inexplicable. I've noted it, that's all. Half of humanity's troubles arise from the inability to see that contradictory propositions can be valid simultaneously. ~ Mark Helprin

Am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped! He said no more, but expressed his ~ Leo Tolstoy

Don't ask me how to burn down a building. As me how to grow watermelons or how to explain nature to a child. that is what I want to grow old doing. Please afford me this. ~ Rod Coronado

Of all the sacred places on the coast, none is more comforting than where rivers join the sea. By the river's disappearance we are reminded of life's passing, while by the ocean's beauty we accept it, in a hope we cannot explain. ~ Robert Adams

I was raised as a Baptist in the Bible Belt of the South. Until the age of 37, I had never heard anyone teach or preach about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Oh yes, I had heard those scriptures read, more aptly read over, and had read over them myself, but I had never heard anyone try to explain this amazing experience or even give it any credence. ~ Kimberly Eady

I've already warned you that the simplest ideas are the hardest to understand; I'll now add that they are also the hardest to explain. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Every generation seems to have its members who think the world has gone to hell and a hand basket and that they need to explain a challenging world to their kids. ~ Steven Petrow

Who can explain just how he became the person he is? It does not happen this day or that one. It is a gradual evolution that happens largely unheralded. He simply was who he now was. ~ David Anthony Durham

I've never said hello to a pretty girl alone in the woods at night with my pants unzipped, holding my dick. You, Caleb?'
'Can't say that I have. But I have said hello by breaking arms before. It has the unfortunate side effect of impairing one's ability to hold their dick.'
'That sounds painful,' Xander observed.
Caleb said, 'Ah. That would explain the screaming. ~ Ashlan Thomas

I tugged at the bottom hem of his tank. "Why do you heart roosters?"
His brow quirked. "Really, Mags? If I need to explain this to you, you're worse off than I thought."
It took me another twenty seconds. "Oh. Cock. Got it. ~ Ashlan Thomas