Dumb Down Quotes & Sayings

Someone told me to dumb my poetry down, but I told them I can't because I don't have a smart phone. — Delano Johnson

All three dolphins were magnificent, absolute marvels of the ocean, and by all rights they should have been out in the Pacific, doing what 55 million years of evolution had designed them to do in the most important ecosystem on earth, instead of in here, leaping to the beat of cheesy pop songs.

As I watched, sweat trickled down the back of my neck but something else was rising: anger. The show was soul-crushingly stupid. It was plainly and inanely stupid- all of this was stupid, everything that went on at the cove, the entire arrogant, selfish relationship we had with these animals and with all of nature, as though every bit of life existed only for our purposes. We behaved as though we were gods, deciding the fate of everything, but we weren't. We were just dumb. I felt a wave of despair wash over me. — Susan Casey

If your leg is in a cast, it's really dumb to sit in front of your computer doing unnecessary stuff with it hanging down. Your leg will swell and heal slower, if at all. When you go to your doctor, he/she will give you one of those "you're really dumb and self destructive" looks. Also, "Why didn't you follow my orders and rest?" Your doctor will be right, and so will mine at my next office visit. Elevate, folk! Elevate your mind, your soul, and your leg, in the order needed! — Sandy Nathan

Lee smiled. "If I were a guy ... nothing makes sense until I climax."
"Hallelujah!" Dean exclaimed.
Theresa feigned a more feminized tone. "Oh my God! That is good. That is so good! You guys are senseless until you climax."
"Amen to that," Brenda said.
Lee got the heart shot.
Dean turned to Brenda. "What you got?"
Brenda smiled, held his eyes. "If I were a guy ... too much testosterone will probably make me dumb."
The others laughed.
Brenda got her shot.
"Lyn," I called and turned to her with a smile.
Lyn smiled. "If I were a guy ... I'll put the toilet sit down and flip it back up again just to get the last drop out. — Dew Platt

Calm down? You shot me in the back, you son of a bitch. (Zarek)
Boy, don't you dare insult my mama, and you better stop and think about that one for a minute. I was a paid killer since I was old enough to hold a gun. Had I shot your dumb ass, you wouldn't have a head right now. Having been shot in the back by a friend, I sure wouldn't want to return that favor to anyone. Not even an ornery cuss like you. And why the hell would I hurt myself just to get to you anyway? Lord, boy, use your head. (Jess) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

My goal is to sweep the reader away from his world and bring him along for the adventure. Learning something new shouldn't feel like work, nor should today's younger reader be underestimated. If done correctly, there is no need to "dumb down" the plot or simplify words. When someone tells me he thought The Serpent's Ring was easy to read, I know I succeeded in my storytelling. — H.B. Bolton

Children usually have a natural curiosity about the world and everything in it until they get to school and somebody throws them against the locker because they get A's and act intelligent. After that, some kids try to dumb it down and adapt. — Joshua Neik

The saddest thing a girl can do is dumb herself down for a guy. — Emma Watson

You're one to talk about talking crap, Forester." Dunstan's voice interrupts the memory, and I can't help but feel a little grateful. "Accusing my dad of poisoning the swamp? What a bunch of bull."
"It's not bull,"I snarl. "Your dad's dumping trash into the swamp and you know it!"
Dunstan finally loses it and stands up. The boat tilts dangerously. Melanie and the twins shriek, grasping the sides like they're glued to them.
"You two sit down this minute!" Babette bellows. She's holding onto the motor for dear life. Neither of us listens.
"You wanna run that by me again?" Dunstan growls. His fingers curl into fists.
"Your. Dad. Is. Poisoning. The. Swamp." I let each word out slowly like Dunstan's a dumb little kid who needs help understanding. — Colleen Boyd

His lips rise. "I usually dumb down around the intellectually deficient so I don't come off like a complete prick." I think he just called me stupid. — Krista Ritchie

Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generation of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle."
-from "Song of Myself — Walt Whitman

Someone had carved into the metal wall, a corroded scrawl I hadn't noticed before. The words were upside-down - etched higher than I could reach - but easy to read: LOIS YOU SUCK BUTT! "Suck butt," I said. "You suck butt." What a crazy thing to do. I didn't want to think about it. "That's dumb," I told myself. — Mitch Cullin

Because the vast majority of the world is made up of half-wits, the President asked Mike to come onboard and dumb everything down for them. — Dan Brown

While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice. — Andrew Motion

Don't dumb it down. The audience is smart and gets what you are doing. — Bruce Paltrow

Faced with the opportunity to become the category of one, we almost always hesitate, almost always compromise, almost always dumb it down to play it a little bit safer — Seth Godin

So what are you studying at school?" I asked, watching the TV and not Cooper as he still played gently with a lock of my damp hair.
"Pre-law."
Glancing at him, I frowned then forced myself to stop. "You want to be a lawyer?"
"Nope. Hate lawyers. Hate laws. Hate it all, but I'm the only one of my siblings with an IQ over shitfaced so the burden is on me to be the lawyer."
"I don't get it. Tell your giant brain to dumb it down a little. — Bijou Hunter

In retrospect, it's ridiculous that anyone saw me as a fashion icon, since all I was trying to do was to dumb down my middle-class look by messing with my hair. Throughout the eighties I was invariably half-sure and half-confident about whatever it was I wore ... Still, I've always believed - still do - that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside. — Kim Gordon

Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want. You can choose to dumb yourself down and not express yourself just so you can fit in, just so people won't dislike you. — Gerard Way

Thick pulse and dizziness make his head light and stomach turn. He really can't feel his fingers, or knees for that matter. But everything settles down again - almost as if it were always meant to - when his eyes graze a dumb grin and a pair of glittering eyes. — Changdictator

What I admire about the modern atheist is not at all his logic, but rather his gift of imagination. There will always be the cartoon versions of Christianity further perpetuated by the extremist atheists who do not possess the humility to ask real scholars and theologians its difficult questions. There is little doubt that the atheist has the bigger imagination: the first reason is due to his persistent caricatures of what constitutes a Christian; the second because of his belief that most of his questions are actually rhetorical. From this I can infer that, instead of laughing at one another (the Christian at modern atheist immaturity and the modern atheist at Christian stupidity), we would have a better chance at productivity laughing with one another as we all dumb down what we don't understand. — Criss Jami

Peg came over with dinner tonight and told me about this dumb schmaltzy poem she heard someone read at an AA meeting. It got me thinking. It was about how while we are on earth, our limitations are such that we can only see the underside of the tapestry that God is weaving. God sees the topside, the whole evolving portrait and its amazing beauty, and uses us as the pieces of thread to weave the picture. We see the glorious colors and shadings, but we also see the knots and the threads hanging down, the think lumpy patches, the tangles. But God and the people in heaven with him see how beautiful the portraits in the tapestry are. The poem says in this flowery way that faith is about the willingness to be used by God wherever and however he most needs you, most needs the piece of thread that is your life. You give him your life to put through his needle, to use as he sees fit. — Anne Lamott

Teenage girls these days are more and more getting lured into thinking they should dumb themselves down, and that's going to attract the wrong kind of guy, and it's serious. It's serious business. — Danica McKellar

For someone in an alternative job, an alternative lifestyle, it's very hard to explain what I do. So I sometimes try and dumb it down as much as possible, so I'm changing what I do every time! So sometimes I'm in an Uber, and they ask, 'So what do you do?' and I say, 'I'm a comedian,' or, 'I'm a graphic designer.' — Connor Franta

I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you know, you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy. It's very hard to go down there and make a film like 'Sideways,' which I thought was a great film. They don't want to make films like that anymore, even though that film was very successful. — Terry Zwigoff

I had to get slow and dumb (not take anything for granted) and watch and see how everything connects, how you contact your thoughts and lay them down on paper. — Natalie Goldberg

It was becoming clear to me that what Jesus wanted from us was not pious obedience to a narrow set of rules, but a smart, limitless openmindedness that allowed us--in real life, in actual day-to-day , modern American life--to treat the other person the way we would want to be treated--Gay people, Jewish people, dumb people, rich people, poor people, women, men, right-wingers, liberals, soldiers, and antiwar protesters, maybe even animals--we were supposed to see through the disguise they were wearing, all the down to the I AM in them. That was it. That was the the big commandment, I was almost sure. p. 153 — Roland Merullo

What is she to you anyway?"
"Here's my answer captain. She's the thing that made this all okay-the threadbare coats and the old boots and the guns that jams when you most need them to fire, the loneliness of knowing that you don't matter, that you will never matter, the fact that you're just another body, another uniform to be sent into the fold or the frost, another good boy who knows his place, who does his job, who doesn't ask questions, who will lie down and die and be forgotten. What is she? She's everything, you dumb son of a bitch. — Leigh Bardugo

I don't believe making a movie accessible means you have to dumb them down. — Charles Roven

She introduces me to a nurse as the Best Friend. The impersonal article is more intimate. It tells me that they are intimate, the nurse and my friend.
'I was telling her we used to drink Canada Dry ginger ale and pretend were were in Canada'
'That's how dumb we were,' I say.
'You could be sisters,' the nurse says.
So how come, I'll bet they are wondering, it took me so long to get to such a glorious place? But do they ask?
They do not ask.
Two months, and how long is the drive?
The best I can explain it is this - I have a friend who worked one summer in a mortuary. He used to tell me stories. The one that really got to me was not eh grisliest, but it's the one that did. A man wrecked his care on 101 going south. He did not lose consciousness. But his arm was taken down to the bone - and when he looked at it - it scared him to death.
I mean, he died.
So I hadn't dared to look any closer. But now I'm doing it - and hoping that I will live through it. — Amy Hempel

Finally, our new brain needs a purpose. A purpose is expressed as a series of goals. In the case of our biological brains, our goals are established by the pleasure and fear centers that we have inherited from the old brain. These primitive drives were initially set by biological evolution to foster the survival of species, but the neocortex has enabled us to sublimate them. Watson's goal was to respond to Jeopardy! queries. Another simply stated goal could be to pass the Turing test. To do so, a digital brain would need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human. It would also have to dumb itself down considerably, for any system that displayed the knowledge of, say, Watson would be quickly unmasked as nonbiological. — Ray Kurzweil

I guess you'll have to be a sodding duke now," I tried-clumsy, tasteless, and he only winced.
"Sorry." I covered his hand with mine. "That was dumb."
"No, you're right. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been stewing about it. Me and Reggie both. I think it's safe to say that this isn't remotely what either of us wanted."
"I'm sure you'll do swimmingly."
"Bugger that," he said, tired. "And bugger Aubrey, too. I wish I could say that to his face, even if he did go down a hero in a dogfight. Tell him what an ass he is for dying. For leaving me here like this."
"I know."
His hand twisted around until it covered mine. — Shana Abe

It's in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There's no system to avoid bad markets. You can't do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go. — Charlie Munger

Whoever teaches without emancipating stultifies. — Jacques Ranciere

The Fairies called it a paw because they wanted to believe I was an animal-and not the sort of animal that discusses junkyard philosophy and enjoys Turkish coffee and knows Bone Magic and holds down a mortgage, no, the kind you can cut up for meat and only feel bad about it on Fridays. It's easier to use somebody if you can think of them as mute and dumb and made for your pleasure. — Catherynne M Valente

SOCIETY IS DOOMED for one very simple reason: it takes dozens of men working months with millions of dollars in materials to build a building, but only one dumb-ass with a bomb to bring it down. — David Wong

We do not need you. Do not come unless I call you." Ricard crawled out of bed and shut the door as the steam men moved down the hall. "Dumb things." Ricard - As Timeless As Stone — Maeve Alpin

I met Jay Jonhson. I won him the way poor people occasionally win the lottery: Shameless perseverance and embarrassingly dumb luck, and every time I see one of those sly, toothless, beaten-down souls on TV holding a winning ticket, I think, Go, team. — Amy Bloom

It's well known that many girls have a tendency to dumb down when they're in middle school. — Sally Ride

A name is important. It isn't something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is now people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it's a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can't be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you're known even when you do something great or something dumb. — Rita Williams-Garcia

I couldn't believe that last publisher. If you keep dumbing down art/products, the culture/consumers will remain dumb, maybe even regress. We'd have a country filled with idiots. Why not push people to be smarter? Is being smart a bad thing? Maybe we are in a dark age of some sort. Stupidity isn't only being encouraged, it's being cultivated. It's easier to make money and control people when they are dumber than you. After — D.B. Rouse

Envoi"

Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.

Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.

Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone. — Ezra Pound

The Church is enamored with skilled orators and performers working the stage like a choreographed Broadway play. Others profess to talk about how Jesus ministry was mere story telling like through parables and that is why it was so effective. It is though there is some magical incantation, if we just repeat then things will happen. It is like the current modernity movement in the church, dumb it down that is the problem. If we just take away the mystery and otherness of God then we will know and see God, really? — Jonah Books

If we start to dumb down what has been made clear, where does that stop? — Andy Stanley

I think the doctors are right. I'm convinced that's why many of us dumb down our surroundings. It's a way to insulate ourselves against the cold, dark world that often isn't very kind. So we distract ourselves with silly movies and other emotional
candy. Still, at the end of the day-and even more important, at the end of life-if we haven't prepared ourselves for what is coming, we've just put ourselves in a much scarier situation. — Jim Fletcher

Find your self-respect now. Don't dumb yourselves down. Think of yourself as capable and worthy of finding a guy who is going to respect you, too. It's so important, I mean, and the confidence you get from feeling smart and tackling something like mathematics, which is a challenge, right? Math is hard. — Danica McKellar

Once a year Jobs took his most valuable employees on a retreat, which he called " The Top 100." They were picked based on a simple guideline: the people you would bring if you could take only a hundred people with you on a lifeboat to your next company. At the end of each retreat, Jobs would stand in front of the whiteboard( he loved whiteboards because they gave him complete control of a situation and they engendered focus) and ask, " What are ten things we should be doing next?" People would fight to their suggestions on the list. Jobs would write them down, and then cross off the ones he decreed dumb. After much jockeying, the group would come up with a list of ten.Then Jobs would slash the bottom seven and announce, " We can only do three. — Walter Isaacson

I don't think you need to dumb down to a child, you merely have to be clear, you know? — Mary Chapin Carpenter

Any religion-based state has a mission to limit the minds of its people, to fight the developments of history and logic, and to dumb down its citizens. It's important to stand in the way of such a mentality, to deny it from continuing its mission to murder the souls of its people, killing them deep within while they are still alive and breathing. — Raif Badawi

In that sleep and in sleeps to follow the judge did visit. Who would come other? A great shambling mutant, silent and serene. Whatever his antecedents he was something wholly other than their sum, nor was there system by which to divide him back into his origins for he would not go. Whoever would seek out his story through what unraveling of loins and ledgerbooks must stand at last darkened and dumb at the shore of a void without terminus or origin and whatever science he might bring to beat upon the dusty primal matter blowing down out of the millennia will discover no trace of any ultimate atavistic egg by which to reckon his commencing. — Cormac McCarthy

I'm a little overdressed for this, but I think I can compensate by toning down my manners." "Overdressed for what?" said Jean. "Insulting complete strangers," said Locke, loosening his neck-cloth. "Got to mind the delicate social nuances when you inform some poor fellow that he's a dumb motherfucker. — Scott Lynch

I usually dumb down around the intellectually deficient so I don't come off like a complete prick. — Krista Ritchie

Darwin's theory is as dead as he is. Everyone is surviving, fit or not. Years ago, any kid dumb enough to chase a shiny object down a well was dead, and out of the gene pool. Now they got the technology and medicine to save the fool so he can breed more open mouth breathers. — Lenny Bruce

The clown is a creature of chaos. His appearance is an affront to our sense of dignity, his actions a mockery of our sense of order. The clown (freedom) is always being chased by the policeman (authority). Clowns are funny precisely because their shy hopes lead invariably to brief flings of (exhilarating?) disorder followed by crushing retaliation from the status quo. It delights us to watch a careless clown break taboos; it thrills us vicariously to watch him run wild and free; it reassures us to see him slapped down and order restored. After all, we can condone liberty only up to a point. Consider Jesus as a ragged, nonconforming clown
laughed at, persecuted and despised
playing out the dumb show at his crucifixion against the responsible pretensions of authority. — Tom Robbins

I'll tell you why I keep my scrapbooks. It's in case my real father shows up .I never met him, don't even know his name ... I've got this feeling he's out there searching for me. When he bursts through the door and tells me he's spent a fortune on detectives looking all over the world for me, I'm not going to sit there like a dumb cluck when he asks me what I've been doing. I'm going to yank out my eleven scrapbooks filled with my experiences and inner-most thoughts on life lived in three time zones in America. I was a Girl Scout for three months when we lived in Atlanta. I couldn't get those square knots down for anything, but I got the big concept. Be prepared. Addie always told me, It's more important to get the big concept than to be an expert in the small stuff. — Joan Bauer

The societies kids naturally form are tribal. Gangs, clubs, packs. But we're herded into schools and terrified into behaving. Taught how we're supposed to pretend to be, taught to parrot all kinds of nonsense at the flick of a switch, taught to keep our heads down and our elbows in and shut off our minds and shut off our sex. We learn we can't even piss when we have to. That's how we learn to be plastic and dumb. — Marge Piercy

I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face. — Barack Obama

Let me be frank," Joe's voice pulls me back. "You seem like a nice girl. So why the hell are you chasing down a rat bastard like Blake?"
I smile at the description. "I thought you were his friend."
"Can't help liking the son of a bitch." He squirms in the seat, trying to find a comfortable position. "Pardon me for saying so. You don't seem like his type."
What is that suppose to mean? So I'm not dumb, snobby or slutty ... Oh. — Talia Vance

If someone's dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I'm certainly not dumb enough to turn it down. — Elizabeth Taylor

When you're the guy behind the camera, you're aware of the reasons for the compromises or the changes that get made. As an actor, you go and do your thing, and someone else down the line then does all the math and goes, "We can't include that thing where he's pretending to be dumb and needling those people, because it takes a minute and a half, and it ruins the next scene. It doesn't make sense." If you're directing, you're the one doing that. — Casey Affleck

There was so much unpleasantness in the workaday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us. It might not be so bad. They could drop food down to us, or if that was not possible, crumbs from their PowerBars and bags of microwave popcorn surely would end up within an arm's length sooner or later. The cleaning crews, needing to vacuum, would inevitably turn us on our sides, preventing bedsores, and we would make little toys out of runs in the carpet, which, in moments of extreme regression, we might suck on for comfort. — Joshua Ferris

His hormones never calmed down once they set in when he was a teenager.""Yeah, we've considered getting him neutered," Nathan adds,a goading tone to his voice.I see Nathan and Sol share a look,then Sol says,"Sorry, when did you last get laid, Nate? Oh yeah, about a year ago." He smiles smugly. "Me, you ask? Oh well, I got some yesterday. — Samantha Towle

We insult her everyday on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she's young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb — John Lennon

I have more dumb luck thank anybody I know. There must be a convey of guardian angels working twenty-four hours a day looking after me[ ... ] Like the night I first got to Nashville that I laid down in the middle of Broadway, waiting to get run over. It didn't happen [ ... ] I could swear they were keeping me alive just to see what I'd get next, I'm glad they feel that way. I'm trying to help them a little more this days. — Willie Nelson

A lot of people who don't write for kids think it's easy, because they think kids aren't as smart as they are, or that you have to dumb down what you would normally write for kids. But I think you have to work harder when you write for kids, to make sure every word is right, that it's there for the right reason. — Brian Selznick

I never had any thought the whole week. I figured my caddie [Jerry Beard] knew the course a lot better than me, so I put out my hand and played whatever club he put in it. I'd say, "How hard do I hit it?" He'd tell me and I'd swing. The guys who come down here once a year and try to get smart with Mr. Jones' course are the dumb ones. — Fuzzy Zoeller

We don't need to dumb down our stuff. And it's important to know how far we can push readers. — Ashwin Sanghi

The computer's password protected. I try the basics: 1,2,3,4. QWERTY. YTREWQ, which is qwerty backward. PASSWORD. A few others. Whoever uses this computer isn't quite that dumb. They are, however, dumb enough to write it down in the corner of the desk blotter. — Michael Grant

That's stupid," Luke says sharply, totally out of character, and shoots Laura a look that makes her flush red. "First of all, she's not ugly-pretty, she's just normal pretty. What a dumb thing to say. And second, she's different from the average girl 'cause she doesn't even need makeup."
Silence. Luke looks down at his arm and twirls the leather strap around his wrist. I nudge him, and when he looks up at me, I mouth Thank you, not trusting my voice since an unexpected lump has found its way to my throat. — Alecia Whitaker

He laughed again. "Not boring and not dumb. That's so much better than your boyfriend who both bored me and was dumb. To be honest I don't
know what you saw in him."
"Ex. Ex-boyfriend " she said. "I swear to God I'm never going to live that down. — Thea Harrison

You don't have to dumb down - you just have to find a clever, good, secure man. I've found a couple - I've been lucky - but it's probably hard for everybody to find that true love of a good man. — Kimora Lee Simmons

What's Management up to?" I whispered to Bennett.
"My guess is a new acronym," he whispered. "Departmental Unification Management Business." He wrote down the ltters on his legal pad. "D.U.M.B. — Connie Willis

At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet. — Thomas Carlyle

I felt like my vote was the vote that put [Obama] into office. It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that's how much power it felt like I had. — Puff Daddy

I miss being able to wake up when I want and go on stage when I want and pull down my pants when I want. — Mark Wahlberg

The lyric abstrusities of Auden ring mystically down the circular canals of my ear and it begins to look like snow. The good gray conservative obliterating snow. Smoothing (in one white lacy euphemism after another) out all the black bleak angular unangelic nauseous ugliness of the blasted sterile world: dry buds, shrunken stone houses, dead vertical moving people all all all go under the great white beguiling wave. And come out transformed. Lose yourself in a numb dumb snow-daubed lattice of crystal and come out pure with the white virginal veneer you never had. — Sylvia Plath

So many shows out there dumb-down the country. It's so admirable to be part of a show that wants people to think. — David Krumholtz

I know, I know: it can be frustrating as hell. But people have an unfortunate habit of assuming they understand the reality just because they understood the analogy. You dumb down brain surgery enough for a preschooler to think he understands it, the little tyke's liable to grab a microwave scalpel and start cutting when no one's looking. — Peter Watts

Who was that?" he whispered.
"Who?" I asked, playing dumb.
"That Ellie Watt. I know the real Ellie Watt and she's not that much of a people person."
"Which Ellie do you prefer?" I asked teasingly.
He stopped walking and pulled me closer to him,
staring down into my eyes.
"Whichever one I've got. — Karina Halle

The demons diverted its sights from me and swooped down on the yappy mutt.
Dogs aren't my thing.
I hate dogs. And if this one was dumb enough to sacrifice itself for me, hallelujah. I kept running.
After I reversed course.
Stupid dog. — A&E Kirk

Snooki is a bestselling author? Huh? What? I don't know if I should dumb down my book, shoot myself or find a publisher who'll settle for a rough draft written on a Pop-Tart and a coconut lotion handie.. — Geoffrey Hill

Before you look down upon the cripple, understand why you walk. Before you judge the dumb, understand why you talk. Before you judge the deaf, understand why you listen and hear. Before you judge the blind, understand why you look and see. Before you speak negative, understand why positive speech exists. Before you think negative, understand why positive thinking exists. Before you react negatively, understand why reacting positively exist. There exist positive and negative choices always. You have a choice. Good or bad, you choose! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

'The Simpsons' was about children and married parents; 'Futurama' is about people in between; they're growing up and haven't settled down. Every other cartoon show seemed to be, you know, dumb dad, bratty kids. — Matt Groening

This music ebbs and flows, irregular, sad. It reminds me, weirdly, of watching the ocean during a bad storm, the lashing, crashing waves and the spray of sea foam against the docks; the way it takes your breath away, the power and the hugeness of it.
That's exactly what happens as I listen to the music, as I come up over the final crest of hill, and the half-ruined barn and collapsing farmhouse fan out in front of me, just as the music swells, a wave about to break: The breath leaves my body all at once, and I'm struck dumb by the beauty of it. For a second it seems to me like I really am looking down at the ocean - a sea of people, writhing and dancing in the light spilling down from the barn like shadows twisting up around a flame. — Lauren Oliver

When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. — Steve Jobs

Baby's World
I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's very
own world.
I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoops
down to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows.
Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never
could move, come creeping to his window with their stories and with
trays crowded with bright toys.
I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind,
and out beyond all bounds;
Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms
of kings of no history;
Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, the Truth
sets Fact free from its fetters. — Rabindranath Tagore

I never want to dumb it down. If there's any simplification, it's just a simplification to make sure that the reader understands the point that the character is trying to make. — Tony DiTerlizzi

We're not going to dumb down for them. They have to move up. They're the network and we're the show. — Alia Shawkat

Believe what you want But don't dumb down what Jesus said. — Andy Stanley

The thought of people in this day and age sitting down to listen to a radio variety show on Saturday evening is rather implausible and was even more so in 1974 when we started "A Prairie Home Companion." Thank goodness Minnesota Public Radio was too poor to afford good advice or the show never would've got on the air. We only did it because we knew it would be fun to do. It was a dumb idea. I wish I knew how to be that dumb again. — Garrison Keillor

Are you hurt? Don't lie to me, Rose. If you hurt yourself when you jumped from the sedan, you need to admit it, not be ashamed. It was a dumb plan, but we got away."
She gritted her teeth, breathing through her mouth. When she could speak, she made a strangling sound deep in her throat. "I'm not hurt."
He glared down at her with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me. This is called having contractions, you big oaf," Rose snapped back, her glare maybe outdoing his by a shade. — Christine Feehan

I think the record-buying public know what they like, and when people are trying to pander to them, I think they know it. They want the genuine article, so if we try to sort of "dumb down" for the mass public, I think they're too smart for that, and would recognize us as fakes. It seems like the bands that do crossover do so really on their own terms, and they just find that their terms just kind of make a big dove-tail with the masses. — Ira Kaplan

Others felt that their question had already been answered in the minds of other group members, and if they asked the question, it would be considered a dumb question, and they would be put down as being stupid or not going along with the group. Because people did not ask questions, people lost lives when the Titanic sank, when the Challenger crashed, when President Kennedy authorized a covert attack on the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. — Michael J. Marquardt

I've never been satisfied with myself, ever. But I feel good about myself, because I'm truthful. I don't corrupt myself. I'm also a perfectionist. I'm very impatient. I've got energy and drive and I can't stand inefficiency in people. And I can't stand dumb people. Why surround yourself with people who are going to tie you down? I don't suffer fools. — Jack LaLanne

The saddest thing for a girl to do is to dumb herself down for a guy. — Emma Watson

A small hole in his shirt revealed a gooey red blob right in the meaty part above his armpit, blood pouring from the wound. It hurt. It hurt bad. If he'd thought his headache downstairs had been tough, this was like three or four of those, all smashed into a coil of pain right there in his shoulder. And spreading through the rest of his body.
Newt was at his side, looking down with worried eyes.
"He shot me." It just came out, a new number one on the list of the dumbest things he'd ever said. The pain, like living metal staples running through his insides, pricking and scratching with their little sharp points. He felt his mind going dark for the second time that day. — James Dashner

The part of it of which rationalism can give an account is relatively superficial. It is the part that has the prestige undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for proofs, and chop logic, and put you down with words. But it will fail to convince or convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are opposed to its conclusions. — William James

Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants, but they are dumbed down, and I hate it when they dumb them down. — Mario Batali

You can start by wiping that fucking dumb-ass smile off your rosey, fucking, cheeks! Then you can give me a fucking automobile ... a fucking Datsun, a fucking Toyota, a fucking Mustang, a fucking Buick! Four fucking wheels and a seat! And I really don't care for the way your company left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with fucking keys to a fucking car that isn't fucking there. And I really didn't care to fucking walk down a fucking highway and across a fucking runway to get back here to have you smile at my fucking face. I want a fucking car RIGHT FUCKING NOW! — Steve Martin

Music has always pushed ahead social movements and can do much more than just dumb down a populace. — Saul Williams