Self Explanatory Quotes & Sayings

LYB NBC - which means "love ya, babe; nuts, back & critters" - the first half being pretty self-explanatory. Less obviously, "nuts, back, and critters" means watch out for crazy people, watch your back because you can't trust anyone, and don't run over any animals. — Tyler Oakley

as if any one but a fool imagined that he could compress a thing like art or religion or science into an epigram which could be lifted from its context and, so lifted, continue to make sense. Giving and collecting definitions is not philosophy but a parlour game. The writer's definition of religion (as of art and so forth) is coextensive with this entire book, and will nowhere be found in smaller compass. Nor will it be found in its completeness there; for no book is wholly self-explanatory, but solicits the co-operation of a reasonably thoughtful and instructed reader. Religion, — R.G. Collingwood

Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. — Carlos Castaneda

I'm a real bastard without him," Jace apologized, and Nick
gulped some water and nodded.
"Yeah, I hear that. Why?"
Jace looked at him in outrage because the question was ... was
self-explanatory. "Because! Because he's ... he's Quent! — Amy Lane

What, on the eternal list of priorities, precedes health? What more obvious role could government have than the defense of the life, of each citizen? We cannot stop every germ that seeks to harm us any more than we can stop every person who seeks to harm us. But we can try dammit and government's essential role in that effort facilitate it, reduce its cost, broaden its availability, improve my health and yours, seems, ultimately, self-explanatory. — Keith Olbermann

The whole set of stylizations that are known as "camp" (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about "camp" is that it has been fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, "Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag. — Quentin Crisp

I have found out all I need to know, it's pretty self explanatory. You wanted a laugh; trick two girls into thinking you liked them. Bravo, you succeeded. Now go have a celebratory drink with your frat buddies, I said, spitting rain out at him with each word I spoke. — Nicole Gulla

I don't use names or captions for my many portraits of politicians and authors for newspapers. The drawing has to be self-explanatory, so I spend a lot of time sketching to find an idea and an angle that is clear. — Siegfried Woldhek

Love is self-explanatory: the right person makes you feel well nigh immortal, vaccinating you with their affections. So long as you remain in their heart you are safe, or better than safe even, for a while at least. You are momentarily, in a state of grace. — Jonathan Hull

Family comes first is indeed a powerful principle, but so is the imperative for your own development. It is not a self-explanatory or self-applying principle, and it can collide with other principles. — Edward Rocklin

I have been using the word 'other' as though it were self-explanatory, yet who the 'other' is must always be something of a mystery. It is a mystery at an immediate level in the sense that no person is entirely knowable. — Stephanie Dowrick

A punishment is not self-explanatory. It serves no purpose until the person serving it knows the real reason for being punished. — Amit Pandey

It's pretty self-explanatory. If we play well, we know what our picture is. If we don't play well, we'll know what our picture is. — Chase Utley

When I caught up, I grabbed Jack's arm. "What are you
doing here?" "Hiding! That's how you play the game, right? I thought
the title hide-and-seek was fairly self-explanatory. Then
again, you are blond." "So are you, idiot. Again, what are you doing here? — Kiersten White

When you're young and you're comin' up, and you dream of gettin' this record deal, and then you actually get it, and, you know, its apples and oranges from everything that you pictured. The line was pretty self-explanatory to me: once I got in my major label agreement, I definitely couldn't deal with it. It was drivin' me crazy, givin' me gray hairs at an early age. — Joe Budden

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive. — Carlos Castaneda

Oh, well, thanks an awful lot, Thomas, Myfanwy thought bitterly. It sounds like I'm the Defense Minister of Ghosts and Goblins, but as long as the job is "all fairly self-explanatory," I've no doubt it will be fine. The country might get overrun by brownies and talking trees, but what the hell
there's always Australia! — Daniel O'Malley

If you can't make something self-evident, you at least need to make it self-explanatory. — Steve Krug

Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris. — Laura Lippman

The Art of War is self-explanatory — Sun Tzu

But the idea that this world is not self-explanatory and that revelation from beyond it is necessary to understand it is profoundly distasteful to us humans. It means that we are not in control of our own destiny or able to make our own disposition of things for our own benefit. This thought, the thought that we cannot supply our ultimate needs for ourselves, that we are dependent on someone or something utterly beyond us, is deeply troublesome. — John N. Oswalt

The door opened to reveal a room with walls consisting mostly of inset mahogany bookcases covered by leaded glass doors. Intricate plasterwork adorned the ceiling in a flowered medallion style that matched the thick Aubusson carpet on the floor.
"Are all of these books for sale?" Amanda asked in a hushed voice, feeling as if she had entered a king's treasure room.
Fretwell nodded. "You'll find everything from antiques to zoology. We have a wide selection of antique maps and celestial charts, original folios and manuscripts..." He gestured around them, as if the extensive rows of books were self-explanatory.
"I would love to lock myself in here for a week," she said impulsively. — Lisa Kleypas

Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum. — Steve Krug

The mistake of all the religions is to look outside the world for explanations of the world, rather than rethinking the world itself, so that it offers up its own explanations for itself. The world itself must be self-explanatory. — Rebecca Goldstein

If anyone names me after a gemstone, I'm going to find out how well my new teeth work on them. I saw that movie too. I think I'll stick with Dragon. At least it sounds badass and it's self-explanatory." - Jill Hammond — Thomas Cardin

We've fooled around. I guess he's kind of a fuck buddy."
"Fuck buddy?"
"Oh, you don't know that term? Well, it's a friend-"
"You don't have to explain. It's vividly self-explanatory. — Marshall Thornton

Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action. — Tom Perrotta

My songs are self-explanatory ... somebody pointed out to me that ... my songs pretty much speak for themselves. — Christine McVie

The English language has been thrust upon Americans. And it is wrong. As static and immobile as are the English, just so ever-moving are Americans. Here is a huge country. Not a mere island. Naturally people move. And they need a moving language. A language that can interpret American life. Nouns and adjectives won't express American life. They are too weak, too immobile. But verbs, adverbs, prepositions and the like, ah, they are moving, just as Americans. Obviously we cannot suddenly junk the English language and adopt some other tongue. English is too connotative, too close to us. Our problem is to adapt the English language to American needs. To make it move with us Americans. That is the problem
to write things as they are, not as they seem. our aim must be not to explain things, but to write the thing itself, and thereby in itself be self explanatory. — Gertrude Stein

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like. — Paul Mooney

Ayn Rand held that art is a 're-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgements.' By its nature, therefore, a novel (like a statue or a symphony) does not require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aloof from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond. — Leonard Peikoff

Thomas Jefferson spoke of certain truths as self-evident. He did not say that these truths were self-explanatory or that they were self-operating. — J. Martin Klotsche

We are mammals who need sex, need companionship, who seek the protective enclave of the family for reasons of survival and reproduction. We select a so-called loved one for the most primitive reason - my hero's preference for a pear-shaped woman is self-explanatory, I think. The loved one laughs or smells like the parent who gave one youthful succor and all else is projected, all else is invented — Robert Galbraith

Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance, analysis, and interpretation - at least in the foreign policy world - depend on context and relevance. — Henry Kissinger

If we would listen to our kids, we'd discover that they are largely self-explanatory. — Robert Breault

Revenge of the Giant Grill Man. — Joan Bauer

If a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading. — Paulo Coelho