Quotes & Sayings About Confusing Words

You were a very confusing object for the Itineris to digest. So it held you for a bit. You're quite fortunate it eventually decided to spit you out."
The words "digest" and "spit" were more than a little unsettling. "Okay," I finally said. "That's um, really awful to know. But thanks for telling me."
He shrugged. "It was nothing. — Rachel Hawkins

In one extreme case, WMATA planner William Herman complained that the system's main transfer station was badly named. He argued that '12th and G' was both confusing (several entrances would be on other streets) and too undistinguished for so important a station. Ever reasonable, Graham agreed to let Herman choose a better name. 'I'll let you know,' responded a relieved Herman. 'No,' Graham explained, 'I'll give you twenty seconds.' Stunned, Herman blurted out the first words that came into his head: 'Metro Center.' 'Fine, that's it, go on to the next one,' replied the general. And they did. — Zachary M. Schrag

As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough,and the writing is clumsy. She even gets the title wrong: she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'. You could pick it apart completely if you wanted to. But the story itself has real power: it draws you in. the overall plots is a fantasy, but the descriptive details is incredibly real.The balance between the two is excellent. I don't know if words like 'originality' or Inevitability' fit here, and I suppose I might agree if someone insisted it's not at that level, but finally, after you work your way through the thing, with all its faults, it leaves a real impression- it gets to you in some strange, inexplicable way that may be a little disturbing. — Haruki Murakami

If you don't know for sure, then what's the big thing about trying stuff out?" Jamie said, looking not at me but looking out at that statue, just like Hennitz.
I still didn't have any of the right words. "It's more like maybe I do know and I'm still confused too, at the same time. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like how you noticed this thing about me tonight, you saw it, or you already knew it - it's there. But that doesn't mean it's not confusing or whatever. — Emily M. Danforth

Oh dear white children, casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words. — W. H. Auden

It is always as it was between Achilles and Homer: one person has the experience, the sensation, the other describes it. A real writer only gives words to the affects and experiences of others; he is an artist in divining a great deal from the little that he has felt. Artist are by no means people of great passion, but they frequently present themselves as such, unconsciously sensing that others give greater credence to the passions they portray if the artist's own life testifies to his experience in this area. We need only let ourselves go, not control ourselves, give free play to our wrath or our desire, and the whole world immediately cries: how passionate he is! But there really is something significant in a deeply gnawing passion that consumes and often swallows up an individual: whoever experiences this surely does not describe it in dramas, music, or novels. Artists are frequently unbridled individuals, insofar, that is, as they are not artists: but that is something different. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Men still have everything to say about their sexuality, and everything to write. For what they have said so far, for the most part, stems from the opposition activity/
passivity, from the power relation between a fantasized obligatory virility meant
to invade, to colonize, and the consequential phantasm of woman as a "dark
continent" to penetrate and to "pacify." (We know what "pacify" means in terms of
scotomizing the other and misrecognizing the self.) Conquering her, they've made
haste to depart from her borders, to get out of sight, out of body. The way man has
of getting out of himself and into her whom he takes not for the other but for his
own, deprives him, he knows, of his own bodily territory. One can understand
how man, confusing himself with his penis and rushing in for the attack, might
feel resentment and fear of being "taken" by the woman, of being lost in her,
absorbed, or alone. — Helene Cixous

But that's just as bad," protested Milo. "You mean just as good," corrected the Humbug. "Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things." "I don't know which side of anything to look at," protested Milo. "Everything is so confusing and all your words only make things worse. — Norton Juster

What a stupid, fucking, idiotic country this was. All the young women drank water in such vast quantities that it was coming out of their ears, they thought it was "beneficial" and "healthy," but all it did was send the numbers of incontinent young people soaring. Children ate whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread and all sorts of weird coarse-grained rice that their stomachs could not digest properly, but it didn't matter because it was "beneficial," it was "healthy," it was "wholesome." Oh, they were confusing food with the mind, they thought they could eat their way to being better human beings without understanding that food is one thing and the notions food evokes another. And if you said that, you were either a reactionary or just a Norwegian, in other words ten years behind the times. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Parents abandon their children. Children abandon their parents. Parents protect or forsake, but they always forsake. Children stay or go but they always go. And it's all unfair, especially the sound of the words, because language is pleasing and confusing, because ultimately we would like to sing or at least whistle a tune, to walk alongside the stage whistling a tune. We want to be actors waiting patiently for the cue to go onstage. But the audience left a long time ago. — Alejandro Zambra

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. — Gore Vidal

But I am a storyteller, and that involves language, for me the English language, that wonderfully rich, complex, and ofttimes confusing tongue. When language is limited, I am thereby diminished, too. — Madeleine L'Engle

If you look at it from another point of view, words can be very confusing. Because they are often beautiful and we have so many of them and although they are very powerful they have no will of their own, we can use them without permission-wildly, madly and get into terrible muddles. — Janice Elliott

Any film featuring Bradley Cooper's gorgeous blue eyes is automatically on my must-see list and they did not disappoint in 'The Words,' which is so intense and confusing that I was pretty lost by the end! — Gayle King

The people around you are generally mysterious. You are never quite sure about their intentions. They present an appearance that is often deceptive - their manipulative actions don't match their lofty words or promises. All of this can prove confusing. Seeing people as they are, instead of what you think they should be, would mean having a greater sense of their motives. — Robert Greene

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor. — Vaclav Havel

She follows her nose and stands once more before the doors of a quintessential dilemma. Male or Female. Here is her paradox. A staccato voice seems to challenge her, berate her. Hombre or Mujer. Mann or Frau. Homme or Femme. Gentleman or Lady. Com on, decide. She knows them all. She is them all. Not fluid or all-encompassing, gathering the harvest of the reaping fields, but fractured and split and bleeding. Her inner core weeping out of itself. There is nothing for hermaphrodites. It's too confusing. The words rattle around in her earbones, androgynous and humming. How can she choose? She cannot choose. To choose is to sunder. — Mark O'Flynn

Spirituality can't be explained, religion seeks for every explanation. Religion will debate and try to prove the existence of God, while spirituality will explain God with as little words as possible. Religion will try to limit God, Christianity, theology and intelligence, while spirituality will open God up to faith; the invisible and confusing and uncomfortable. — Ricky Maye

Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding. — Patrick Rothfuss

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

You're not a failure, Uncle," he said, the words awkward and insufficient in his mouth. "It's only that we don't feel safe. A game has a reset button. You have infinite chances for success. Real life is awfully permanent compared to that, and a lot of religious people make it seem even more permanent - one step the wrong way, one sin too many, and it's the fiery furnace for you. Beware. And then at the same time, you ask us to love the God who has this terrible sword hanging over our necks. It's very confusing." "Ah," said Sheikh Bilal, looking melancholy, "but that's the point. What is more terrifying than love? How can one not be overwhelmed by the majesty of a creator who gives and destroys life in equal measure, with breathtaking swiftness? You look at all the swelling rose hips in the garden that will wither and die without ever germinating and it seems a miracle that you are alive at all. What would one not do to acknowledge that miracle in some way? — G. Willow Wilson

You are reading the words of a complete schmuck, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Wouldn't it be nice if all authors admitted what I just said? The world would surely be a lot less confusing if they did... — Mark B. Warring

I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.
"Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock.
Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day. — Norton Juster

The assertion fallacy ... is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions. — John Searle

If your world today seems confusing, be comforted by the words of the prophets of God who have told you what the future holds for you as a child of God. — David Jeremiah

Belonging. Togetherness. These words are as complicated and confusing as the word love. It's probably all the same thing. Or it would be if we let it be. — David Levithan

Objections to verbification in English tend to be motivated by personal taste, not clarity. Verbed words are usually easily understood. When a word like 'friend' is declared not a verb, the problem isn't that it's confusing; it's that the protester finds it deeply annoying. — Erin McKean

Everything is made of words, and the words had done their job. I could even say they had done it well. They had risen in a confusing swarm and spun around in spirals, ever higher, colliding and separating, golden insects, messengers of friendship and knowledge, higher, higher, into that region of the sky where the day turns into night and reality into dreams, regal words on their nuptial flight, always higher, until their marriage is finally consummated at the summit of the world. — Cesar Aira

Conversations sometimes are so hard to follow.
People are so confusing with the wrong facial
expressions for their words. — Tina J. Richardson

Let's cut to the chase, the sharia controversy. I don't think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be. I failed to find the right words. I succeeded in confusing people. I've made mistakes - that's probably one of them. — Rowan Williams

All my work will explode inside my body, each fragment of my anatomy will acquire a life of its own, outside mine, Humberto won't exist, only these monsters, the despot who imprisoned me at La Rinconada to force me to invent him, Ines's honey complexion, Brigida's death, Iris Mateluna's hysterical pregnancy, the saintly girl who was never beatified, Humberto Penaloza's father pointing out Don Jeronimo dressed up to go to the Jockey Club, and your benign, kind hand, Mother Benita, that does not and will not let go of mine, and your attention fixed on these words of a mute, and your rosaries, the Casa's La Rinconada as it once was, as it is now, as it was afterwards, the escape, the crime, all of it alive in my brain, Peta Ponce's prism refracting and confusing everything and creating simultaneous and contradictory planes, everything without ever reaching paper, because I always hear voices and laughter enveloping and tying me up. — Jose Donoso

His touch was like an electric current that ran through his fingers into my cheek and down the back of my neck.
I took another step back, away from him. "Don't do that," I whispered and hated the part of myself that died for his soft touch. "Why? Why do you do things like that if you agree we shouldn't be involved? It's confusing and ... and you make it so much worse." My words tumbled over each other as they poured from my mouth.
He didn't reach for me again. His blue eyes were sad. — Kirby Howell

She put her hands together and Saul hoped she wasn't about to say -
'Namaste,' said CC, bowing. 'He taught me that. Very spiritual.'
She said 'spiritual' so often it had become meaningless to Saul.
'He said, CC Das, you have a great spiritual gift. You must leave this place and share it with the world. You must tell people to be calm.'
As she spoke Saul mouthed the words, lip-synching to the familiar tune.
'CC Das, he said, you above all others know that when the chakras are in alignment all is white. And when all is white, all is right.'
Saul wondered whether she was confusing an Indian mystic with a KKK member. Ironic, really, if she was. — Louise Penny

Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not ... " - Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear - " ... when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing. — Erykah Badu