Simple But Interesting Quotes & Sayings

Books do not make life easier or more simple, but harder and more interesting. — Harry Golden

Lundin says, "Denniz was an arrangement genius." He adds, "like Steve Jobs, he knew what to take out. 'You can get rid of that, that. Keep it simple.' " As Denniz put it, "A great pop song should be interesting, in some way. That means that certain people will hate it immediately and certain people will love it, but only as long as it isn't boring and meaningless. Then it's not a pop song any longer; then it's something else. It's just music. — John Seabrook

Actors always want to know how I come up with interesting and creative takes on characters, characters that aren't like me as I appear in daily life and that aren't like each other. It's simple: I let the lines and images connect with my imagination. I don't worry about consistency; I let myself respond moment by moment, piecemeal, to the character's dialogue and actions. Then I let my responses take me wherever they go, making mistakes and discarding them until choices start repeating themselves on their own no matter how arbitrary they seem at first. Then I know I'm on to something. But I don't try to put the character together. I leave it in pieces. The script and story put the character together so my moment by moment performance seems like a creative take on the whole character. — Harold Guskin

One interesting side-effect of the fire in Ankh-Morpork concerns the inn-sewer-ants policy, which left the city through the ravaged roof of the Broken Drum, was wafted high into the discworld's atmosphere on the ensuing thermal, and came to earth several days and a few thousand miles away on an uloruaha bush in the beTrobi islands. The simple, laughing islanders subsequently worshipped it as a god, much to the amusement of their more sophisticated neighbours. Strangely enough the rainfall and harvests in the next few years were almost supernaturally abundant, and this led to a research team being despatched to the islands by the Minor Religions faculty of Unseen University. Their verdict was that it only went to show. * — Terry Pratchett

We contrast the urban and the natural, but that's a contemporary myth. We're animals, after all; our cities are organic products, fully as "natural" (whatever that word really means) as a termite hill or a rabbit warren. But how much more interesting: how much more complex, dressed in the intricacies and exfoliations of human culture, simple patterns iterated into infinite variation. And full of secrets, beyond counting. — Robert Charles Wilson

Before he could say a word, she moved closer and pressed her smooth palm to his scar.
He nearly swooned. Clutching the chair at his side, Will swayed into her space, lured by the luscious heat and pleasure that she gave him with that simple touch. A moan escaped him.
"Interesting," she murmured.
He would kill her. Just for that. "I do believe I hate you, Miss Evernight."
Firelight caressed her skin as she gave him the smallest of smiles. "Your sense of humor is odd."
He hadn't been joking. — Kristen Callihan

I find it quite entertaining that girlfriends and wives of some of my friends and the mistresses of my ex-husband feel the need to keep up with my social media. I didn't realize my life was so interesting since I am a simple person...I guess that's what happens when you have trust issues, bitterness, and/or nothing better to do. — April Mae Monterrosa

Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy. — Donald Fagen

Young people love what is interesting and odd, no matter how true or false it is. More mature minds love what is interesting and odd about truth. Fully mature intellects, finally, love truth, even when it appears plain and simple, boring to the ordinary person; for they have noticed that truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I think it's because, in our complicated lives, we yearn only for the simple. An evening in front of the telly. A nice sit-down. A game of cards. At a drinks party, I can find myself talking to a fascinating and beautiful woman who's just written a book about something interesting and clever. But what I yearn for is to be in the pub with my mates. — Jeremy Clarkson

There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin, for example."
"And what do they think? Against it, are they?"
"It is not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray."
"Nope."
"Pardon?"
There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that
"
"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they Starts with thinking about people as things ... — Terry Pratchett

The problem of Palestine was that everyone wanted things simple: everyone was an extremist because everyone wanted things simple. It was the problem of humanity. Good and evil, as if there were only those two. The interesting thing was to seek truth and then face it. — Amy Wilentz

If you're not getting through to others, the reason may not be because they "are idiots." The problem may be that you haven't figured out a simple and interesting way to communicate your messages. — Bruce Kasanoff

But it's not as simple as that," he told himself, because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light. "If Guppees and Chupwalas didn't hate each other so," he thought, "they might actually find each other pretty interesting. Opposites attract, as they say. — Salman Rushdie

The mistake many people make when they go to a bespoke tailor is they often think they need to do something special - either an interesting design feature, or a particularly interesting or unique-looking cloth. I say do the opposite. Stick to something really simple, because this will be a suit that you will really want to wear, so start with something very straightforward and you will get an enormous amount of joy wearing it. — Patrick Grant

The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom', his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol. — Florence King

It's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth — Giacomo Leopardi

The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. Spiritual — G.K. Chesterton

I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much. Myself, I'm a very realistic person. I don't trust anything New Age
or reincarnation, dreams, Tarot, horoscopes. I don't trust anything like that at all. I wake up at 6 in the morning and go to bed at 10, jogging every day and swimming, eating healthy food. I'm very realistic. But when I write, I write weird. That's very strange. When I'm getting more and more serious, I'm getting more and more weird. When I want to write about the reality of society and the world, it gets weird. Many people ask me why, and I can't answer that. But I recognized when I was interviewing those 63 ordinary people
they were very straightforward, very simple, very ordinary, but their stories were sometimes very weird. That was interesting. — Haruki Murakami

The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners; but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader. — Edward Gibbon

Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities. — Benjamin Franklin

My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship. — Emily Watson

Myra wasn't simple or complicated. She was different. She was not perfect, not even close but her flaws were intresting. She always had an opinion, something to say about everything.Most interesting thing about her is that she never said something to please, yet she was nice to be around. — Parul Wadhwa

Portraiture keeps me humble. It's simple and straightforward. There is nothing more interesting I can make up than the figure sitting right in front of me. — Jemima Kirke

We both think love (and language) are interesting but taffylike diversions: soft, simple, perhaps a little salty. If either one takes over your life, you're an ass. — Alena Graedon

I wanted to do an album that was very simple and very minimal in the context of instrumentation and stuff. I wanted to use as few means as possible to create a very powerful and interesting sound that would breathe. — Sune Rose Wagner

Complicated things for me tend not to be interesting. Simple things, like when it's really direct eye contact, or when you see a really beautiful shape, like when it's clean or well balanced in the frame. — Russell James

In simple terms, madam? I am your prisoner. At the whim of your mercy-or devilment-for the remainder of the day and the better part of the night ... er, assuming you desire my company, that is."
"Desire your company?" She flung herself into his arms with a small cry. "If I thought it would keep you here, I would burn your clothes and tie you hand and foot to the bed."
"An interesting proposition," he mused. "Perhaps when all of this is over, we might explore it more thoroughly. — Marsha Canham

Staring at a blank piece of paper, I can't think of anything original. I feel utterly uninspired and unreceptive. It's the familiar malaise of 'artist's block' and in such circumstances there is only one thing to do: just start drawing.

The artist Paul Klee refers to this simple act as 'taking a line for a walk', an apt description of my own basic practice: allowing the tip of a pencil to wander through the landscape of a sketchbook, motivated by a vague impulse but hoping to find something much more interesting along the way. Strokes, hooks, squiggles and loops can resolve into hills, faces, animals, machines -even abstract feelings- the meanings of which are often secondary to the simple act of making (something young children know intuitively). Images are not preconceived and then drawn, they are conceived as they are drawn. Indeed, drawing is its own form of thinking, in the same way birdsong is 'thought about' within a bird's throat. — Shaun Tan

I was getting frustrated with America. It's interesting how as simple a thing as, like, letting your hair grow longer changed in the world in those days. — Terry Gilliam

People who have only good experiences aren't very interesting. They may be content, and happy after a fashion, but they aren't very deep. It may seem a misfortune now, and it makes things difficult, but well
it's easy to feel all the happy, simple stuff. Not that happiness is necessarily simple. But I don't think you're going to have a life like that, and I think you'll be the better for it. The difficult thing is to not be overwhelmed by the bad patches. You must not let them defeat you. You must see them as a gift
a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless. — Peter Cameron

Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people
always slow to move and irresolute
every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable. But at every fresh meeting with an interesting woman this experience seemed to slip out of his memory, and he was eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing. — Anton Chekhov

To a psychoanalyst, a woman pilot, particularly a married one with children, must prove an interesting as well as an inexhaustible subject. Torn between two loves, emotionally confused, the desire to fly an incurable disease eating out your life in the slow torture of frustration-she cannot be a simple, natural personality. — Louise Thaden

Isn't it interesting that in Acts 11, at the end of verse 26, it says, "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." What I find interesting is the simple thought that the Christians didn't name themselves. But rather, they were called (or named) "Christians" by those watching their lives. I wonder if it would be the same today. Could someone look at your life or look at my life and name me a Christian? A humbling thought for sure. — Chris Tomlin

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts — Maxine Hong Kingston

Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having. — T.H. White

Near by is an interesting ruin - the meagre remains of an ancient heathen temple - a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days when the simple child of Nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his grandmother as an atoning sacrifice - in those old days when the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical happiness as long as his relations held out; — Mark Twain

I grin at her enthusiasm. "Did you like the little gun-finger I flashed you after that goal? All for you, baby."
She grins back. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but you were actually pointing at the old guy a few seats over. He totally freaked out and started shouting to everyone that you scored that goal for him, and then I heard him ask his wife if maybe you knew that he was just diagnosed with diabetes, so I didn't have the heart to tell him who the goal was really for."
I break down in laughter. "Why is nothing ever simple with us?"
"Hey," she protests. "We're more interesting this way."
I can't argue with that. — Elle Kennedy

I think architecture becomes interesting when it has a double character, that is, when it is as simple as possible but, at the same time as complex as possible — Tadao Ando

Both scientists and laypeople can find themselves seduced into the easy trap of wanting to assign each function of the brain to a specific location. Perhaps because of pressure for simple sound bites, a steady stream of reports in the media (and even in the scientific literature) has created the false impression that the brain area for such-and-such has just been discovered. Such reports feed popular expectation and hope for easy labeling, but the true situation is much more interesting: the continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography. — David Eagleman

Because I'm not thinking about the fiber content in stain resistant carpet." My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
"What does that mean?"
"It means ... " I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity. I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth. "It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present."
His answering smile was leisurely, measured; "I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. — Penny Reid

I was the "feelings" child. Everything I did was a feeling, and it did not count. It is so difficult to talk about demons and gods and spirits without it seeming that you are mad, or sarcastic, or simple, or talking in pictures, or trying to confuse. Or trying to be interesting. It is difficult to talk about demons and make it understood that even if "spirit" is the best word available, it isn't the right word. — Helen Oyeyemi

Take the rose - most people think it very beautiful: I don't care for It at all. I prefer the cactus, for the simple reason that it has a more interesting personality. It has wonderfully adapted itself to its surroundings! It is the best illustration of the theory of evolution in plant life. — Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Become simple and live simply, not only within yourself but also in your everyday dealings. Don't make ripples all around you, don't try to be interesting, keep your distance, be honest, fight the desire to be thought fascinating by the outside world. — Etty Hillesum

Intelligence is: (a) the most complex phenomenon in the Universe; or (b) a profoundly simple process. The answer, of course, is (c) both of the above. It's another one of those great dualities that make life interesting. — Ray Kurzweil

Though it may be, Jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid - it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet! — Charles Dickens

There was nothing abstract or theoretical in his world. The stars had no significance. The sky was not interesting unless it showed probability of rain. He ate corn, corn, corn. He ate beans, beans, beans. — Warren Eyster

PhotoShop is a program I use all the time with my 2D stuff. And that's an extraordinary program - you really can do anything there, and I've never hit my head on the ceiling. The 3D stuff is incredibly complicated, monstrously complicated, but for the things that I want to do, I've found very simple and interesting ways, I hope, of making images without getting tied up too much in the maps and technicalities. — Dave McKean

To only call Wizards, Aliens, and Starships engaging would be a real understatement
it is a delightful, funny, and immensely interesting romp through science and fiction. From candlepower to teleportation, all the way to the fate of the cosmos in the span of a googol years, this is a cornucopia of teachable material. It is also a reminder of the simple thrill of applying science to the world around us, real or imagined. A new classic. — Caleb Scharf

Even if chords are simple, they should rub. They should have dissonances in them. I've always used a lot of alternate bass lines, suspensions, widely spaced voicings. Dfferent textures to get very warm chords. Sometimes you're setting up strange chords by placing a chord in front of it that's going to set it off like a diamond in a gold band. It's not just finding interesting chords, it's how you sequence them, like stringing together pearls on a string ... Interesting chords will compel interesting melodies. It's very hard to write a boring melody to an interesting chord sequence. — Jimmy Webb

There's been a lot of simple vilification of right-wing people. It's really easy to say, 'Well, you're Christian, you're anti-this and that, and I hate you.' But to me, it's more interesting to say, 'What is this person like and how do they really think?' — Louis C.K.

I think that every one whom you may ask how to write a play will reply, if he really can write one, that he doesn't know how it is done. It is a little as if you were to ask Romeo what he did to fall in love with Juliet and to make her love him; he would reply that he did not know, that it simply happened.
Well, my dear friend, if you want me to be quite frank, I'll own up that I don't know how to write a play. One day a long time ago, when I was scarcely out of school, I asked my father the same question. He answered: It's very simple; the first act clear, the last act short, and all the acts interesting. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

I've reached a point in life where it would be easy to let down my guard and write simple imagistic poems. But I don't want to write poems that aren't necessary. I want to write poems that matter, that have an interesting point of view. — Maxine Kumin

It was a most rewarding experience! I learned and saw how with a few simple ideas and concepts the same presentation can go from being standard and ordinary to interesting and involving. — Jeff Keane

We found that our kids enjoy those simple adventures we take as a family. I'm driving, my wife's the copilot and we give one kid a choice of what they want to go do. We eat a lot of bad food and sleep in some interesting hotels. — Mark Consuelos

I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex. — Fred Rogers

For 'Prometheus,' I came back to a very simple question that haunted me that appears in the first 'Alien,' and no one answered in subsequent Alien films: who was the 'Space Jockey' - the big guy in the seat? If you really go into that, it becomes the basis for a pretty interesting story. — Ridley Scott

And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?" "Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example." "And what do they think? Against it, are they?" "It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray." "Nope." "Pardon?" "There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is." "It's a lot more complicated than that - " "No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts. — Terry Pratchett

I must say the more interesting songs to me were the black ones because they were more simple. — John Lennon

What are you doing?" Alain asked.
"Starting a fire, of course." Mari held up the thing in her hand. "It's a fire-starter. A really simple device. Haven't you ever seen one?"
Alain shook his head. "Never. That thing seems very complicated. I do not understand how it can work."
"How do you start fires?"
That was a Guild secret. Or was it? The elders had told him that no Mechanic could understand how it worked. What would this Mechanic say if he told her? "I use my mind to channel power to create a place where it is hot, altering the nature of the illusion there," Alain explained, "and then use my mind to put that heat on what I want to burn."
"Oh," Mechanic Mari said. "Is that actually how you visualize the process?"
"That is how it is done," Alain said.
"That's ... interesting." She grinned. "So, instead of making fire by doing something complicated or hard to understand like striking a flint, you just alter the nature of reality. That is a lot simpler. — Jack Campbell