Good Describing Quotes & Sayings

I'm like John Wayne. I only play good guys. Describing his cameo role on a TV series. — Oliver North

I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way. — Dana Spiotta

Describing architectures through implementation is akin to constructing a picture of your current or desired soulmate from pictures cut out of US Magazine; the result may paint a good picture of what you have or want, but it in no way describes how it is that the soulmate will meet your current or future needs. — Michael T. Fisher

Twitter Terrorist, billionaire heir, ex-con, computer geek, bad boy - none of those terms came close to describing Kyle Rhodes. He was, simply, a good person, and a confident, intelligent man to boot, and she found that combination absolutely irresistible. — Julie James

This is cunnilingus you're describing, right?"
"Good lord, where did you find that word?"
"I saw it in the dictionary."
"Are we perusing the dictionary for profane words now?"
"I wanted to know how to pronounce it properly. The accent is on the third syllable."
" Ah, good to know. Because that word is always likely to come up in casual conversation. — Kathy Cecala

The self-talk of the ego-mind is so busy describing what is happening, judging whether it is good or bad for us, and telling us what we should think and do, that there is little opportunity for our inner knowing to be heard. Instead we remain attached to our assumptions, dreaming of the fulfillment we believe they will bring. — Russell Peters

Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and convention subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had any self-respect they'd be writing memoir, but they're too lazy to fact-check. Of course I never read Re-Fi. But the kids keep bringing home these garish realistic novels and talking about them, so I know that it's an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on one species, full of worn-out cliches and predictable situations--the quest for the father, mother-bashing, obsessive male lust, dysfunctional suburban families, etc., etc. All it's good for is being made into mass-market movies. Given its old-fashioned means and limited subject matter, realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience. — Ursula K. Le Guin

While I have questions about the language used in describing the two economic systems, I think people have fairly good gut sense of the difference between socialism and capitalism. — Chris Matthews

I am describing again an interrupted revolution, the so-called Sexual Revolution. We see now the organized system of production and sales manages to profit by the confusion of the interruption, whereas a finished revolution would be a dead loss, since good sexual satisfaction costs nothing, it needs only health and affection. — Paul Goodman

I learned I'm not a science writer. I'm not very good at describing how something is happening. I try to describe "So What?" — David Brooks

Later, in describing its narrow escape, the creature credited doubly good luck in having mimicked the shape of a harmless doll and the fact that the paranormal investigators had been looking for a hump-free boggart. 3. — Giovanni Valentino

David Foster Wallace is a big idol of mine. His writing is so clear that for years I'd read him and think, My God, he is actually writing the way I think. He's describing the thoughts in my head. And then I realized, No, wait. He's just such a good writer, so transparent and articulate, that when he describes his thoughts, I think they're my own. — Damian Kulash

As I've said repeatedly, Republicans are very good at describing things in black and white; Democrats are very good at describing the 11 shades of gray. — Joseph C. Wilson

In a general way, the literature of the twentieth century is essentially psychological; and psychology consists of describing states of the soul by displaying them all on the same plane, without any discrimination of value, as though good and evil were external to them, as though the effort toward the good could be absent at any moment from the thought of any man. — Simone Weil

I just go for what makes me feel good. Especially in 2011, it's so easy to sound like a dickhead when describing yourself because anything anyone says is a catch-word or a buzz-phrase. — Mike Tucker

I'm no good at describing my books. 'Holes' has been out now for seven years, and I still can't come up with a good answer when asked what that book is about. — Louis Sachar

Describing good relatedness to someone, no matter how precisely or how often, does not inscribe it into the neural networks that inspire love. Self-help books are like car repair manuals: you can read them all day, but doing so doesn't fix a thing. Working on a car means rolling up your sleeves and getting under the hood, and you have to be willing to get dirt on your hands and grease beneath your fingernails. Overhauling emotional knowledge is no spectator sport; it demands the messy experience of yanking and tinkering that comes from a limbic bond. If someone's relationship today bear a troubled imprint, they do so because an influential relationship left its mark on a child's mind. When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it. (177) — Thomas Lewis

The elements of a good story are most definitely details, little bitty details. That does it, especially when you're describing, when you're setting the scene and everything. It's like you're painting a picture, so details are very important. Also, the music gotta be right. The music can really set the tone for the story and let you know what the story is gonna be about, but definitely, it's the vibe in the place where you at and the detail. — Big Boi

Kathy was a Republican, one of those people who used the unforgivable phrase "meant to be"
usually when describing her own good fortune or the disasters that had befallen other people. — Jennifer Egan

And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand. — Paul Ryan

When you are developing your style, you avoid weaknesses. I am not good at describing things, so I stay away from it. And if anyone is going to describe anything at all, it's going to be from the point of view of the character, because then I can use his voice, and his attitude will be revealed in the way he describes what he sees. — Elmore Leonard

At Camp Don Bosco, there were Bibles all over the place, mostly 1970s hippie versions like Good News for Modern Man. They had groovy titles like The Word or The Way, and translated the Bible into "contemporary English," which meant Saul yelling at Jonathan, "You son of a bitch!" (I Samuel 20:30). Awesome! The King James version gave this verse as "Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman," which was bogus in comparison. Maybe these translations went a bit far. I recall one of the Bibles translating the inscription over the cross, "INRI" (Iesus Nazaremus Rex Iudaeorum), as "SSDD" (Same Shit Different Day), and another describing the Last Supper - the night before Jesus' death, a death he freely accepted - where Jesus breaks the bread, gives it to his disciples, and says, "It's better to burn out than fade away," but these memories could be deceptive. — Rob Sheffield

Words aren't very good at describing complicated, strange visual things. You can try, and the reader will have some sort of image in their mind, but words aren't good at that. — Yann Martel

I'm S. Theodora Markson," she said.
"I'm Lemony Snicket," I said, and handed her an envelope I had in my Pocket. Inside was something we called a letter of introduction, just a few paragraphs describing me as somebody who was an excellent reader, a good cook, a mediocre musician and an awful quarreler. — Lemony Snicket

It must be difficult loving someone that much and having to pack it away into a little box and pretend it isn't there'
That was a very good way of describing it. A little box. Packed full of love. Love that I had never really been able to express, so it was banging away at the sides and screaming to be let out.
'Yes it has been. And really, it's a little box I carry everywhere with me, because I guess the love never properly goes away. — Jessica Thompson

What is your type, Finn? So far, I really don't think you have one."
"I don't know. Tall, thin, smart. Quiet. Good with numbers." Finn shrugged.
"You're describing a ruler. Not a girl."
"I'm describing myself," Finn conceded with a laugh.
"Oh, and wouldn't that be fun. Dating yourself. — Amy Harmon

Words ... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more ... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead. — Tom Stoppard

In our days many men have lived in this cruel manner, crushed against the bottom, but each for a relatively short period; so that we can perhaps ask ourselves if it is necessary or good to retain any memory of this exceptional human state.
To this question we feel that we have to reply in the affirmative. We are in fact convinced that no human experience is without meaning or unworthy of analysis, and that fundamental values, even if they are not positive, can be deduced from this particular world which we are describing ... — Primo Levi

in describing the various writers of his idolatry he more than once lets fall a phrase that could equally apply to himself. 'To read Spenser,' he says, 'is to grow in mental health.' What he values in Addison is his 'open-mindedness.' The moments of despair chronicled in Scott's diary cannot, he claims, counterpoise 'that ease and good temper, that fine masculine cheerfulness' suffused through the best of the Waverly novels. Most of all it was the chiaroscuro of what Chaucer called 'earnest' and 'game' that attracted him. He found it eminently in the poetry of Dunbar, that late-medieval Scottish maker who wrote the greatest religious poetry and the earthiest satire in the language — Jocelyn Gibb

This is all very fine, but it won't do-Anatomy-botany-Nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden, who understands botany better, and as for anatomy, my butcher can dissect a joint full as well; no, young man, all that is stuff; you must go to the bedside, it is there alone you can learn disease!
Comment to Hans Sloane on Robert Boyle's letter of introduction describing Sloane as a 'ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful anatomist'. — Thomas Sydenham

The computer models are very good at solving equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly. — Freeman Dyson

There's a passage in John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" that does a pretty good job describing California's rainfall patterns:

The water came in a 30-year cycle. There would be five to six wet and wonderful years when there might be 19 to 25 inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of 12 to 16 inches of rain. And then the dry years would come ... — John Steinbeck

Martina Navratilova is not a 'girl,' nor is Debi Thomas or Katarina Witt, and the women skaters weren't 'cute' in 1988. The problem with describing women as girls is that they never grow up and therefore can't take positions of authority in the world of sport. But the good news is that you can change language, so ultimately you can change the picture of women in sports. — Anita DeFrantz

I haven't had a lot of good, soft things in my life," he said against my forehead. "Not since my family sent me away. Apart from being your sire and feeling that pull to you, it's that goodness, that softness and warmth, along with the resolve and strength in you, that I love. Being turned hasn't taken that from you. If someone were going to design the perfect mate for me, it would be you. Even when you infuriate me with your pigheaded stubbornness and your temper and incredible lack of anything resembling self-preservation - "
"Stop describing me please."
"You're the most fascinating, maddening, adorable creature I've ever met," he said, sighing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. "So, when I seem possessive or I'm raving like a lunatic, it's just that part of me is still very afraid that I'll lose that - that I'll lose you. I love you. — Molly Harper

There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good. — Margaret Atwood

This is very nice, cozy. You got a nice cozy place, Lublin."
"Cramped," Rosa said.
"I work from a different theory. For everything, there's a bad way of describing, also a good way. You pick the good way, you go along better."
"I don't like to give myself lies," Rosa said.
"Life is short, we all got to lie. — Cynthia Ozick

So you actually need spectacles," Leo finally said.
"Of course I do," Marks said crossly. "Why would I wear spectacles if I didn't need them?"
"I thought they might be part of your disguise."
"My disguise?"
"Yes, Marks, disguise. A noun describing a means of concealing someone's identity. Often used by clowns and spies. And now apparently governesses. Good God, can anything be ordinary for my family? — Lisa Kleypas

In all societies, public rhetoric involves some measure of lying, and history -- political history and art history -- is made when someone effectively confronts the lie. But in really scary societies all public conversation is an exercise in using words to mean their opposites -- in describing the brave as traitorous, the weak as frightening, and the good as bad -- and confronting these lies is the most scary and lonely thing a person can do. — Masha Gessen

The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay. — William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak - "child hero" was the phrase generally used - had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police. — George Orwell

I love her [Kimberly Peirce]. Incredibly intense is a good way of describing her. Brutally honest. Really sharp. She's a director for actors. That's what she's best at, sitting down with an actor and just getting to the heart of what a scene is. And getting to the heart of not just what the scene is and the character is, but what you are, and how to build that bridge between the "me" and the character, and those emotions. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausible. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true ... and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you. — Frederik Pohl

Across the hall, the Millmoor kid was holding Crovan's bag. Mother looked to be describing at great length where Lord Creepypants would be staying. Probably the boy had never been inside the house before.

But then Sil came ambling out from under the west arch toward the trio, and to Mother's evident disapproval he took Crovan's bag and led their least welcome guest away. The kid watched them go, unimpressed. He actually rolled his eyes when he thought no one was looking. Good for him. Maybe the boy had been worth rescuing. — Vic James

I have this little neighbor next door. He comes over and tells me about playing Call of Duty, and he's talking about, 'Aw yeah, I slit this guy in the throat and then I stuck a grenade up this guy's ass.' He's describing it in all this detail, and that makes me uncomfortable. I don't think that's good for him. — Jonathan Gottschall