10 Quotes Tagged: explanation

You may ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnesses for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

She said, "I was just guessing."

He said, "No, you weren't. Whatever it was, it wasn't just guessing."

...if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.

I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me 'Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid' - then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all.

There are certain truths that occurs to us, which we cannot convey in words, but requires a personal experience to grasp more vividly.

The longer the explanation, the bigger the lie.... Always remember that.

"Annie clouded up. For a second, he thought she was going to erupt, and flinched. She saw that...and got control of herself with an visible effort. She took three deep breaths, each longer than the last, and her features became serene.
All at once it seemed totally clear to Mike that she was right and he was nuts - that his ingenius theory was nonsense, childish, fantasty bullshit. His conviction evaporated, and he was ashamed. He felt his cheeks grow hot, groped for words with which to backtrack -
"I have to admit I have no better explanation for the the facts," Annie said slowly.
Again, Mike did an emotional instant 180. "Holy shit -"
She held up a hand. "I am going to think now. Very hard, for a long time. You will be as quiet as possible while I do." She got up from the computer, went to the bed, and lay down. "Think yourself, or read, or play games with the headphones on, or go Topside if you like." She clasped her hands on her belly, closed her eyes and appeared to go to sleep"

Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.

When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime. A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.