explanations Quotes

“But one concern, one might even say a torment, remained in the middle of this glory. One fact remained inexplicable, the one involving the compass; now for a scholar, such an unexplained phenomenon becomes torture for the intelligence.”

“The best way to explain it is to do it.”

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I ca’n’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I am not myself, you see.”

“‘Zarathustra’ is my brother’s most personal work; it is the history of his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures, bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest aims.”

“...how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?”

“I don’t have to remember nothing. I don’t even have to explain. She understands it all...”

“She had become attached to you both. She worked very hard for you, Henry! I don’t think you quite realize what anything in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you!”

“There is a reason why all things are as they are.”

“That’s what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.”

“The explanations a writer gives himself for having written any particular book are more often not the real reasons why that book has been written. Honesty is not the issue. Understanding is. A man does not write one novel at a time or even one quatrain at a time. He is engaged in the long process of putting his whole life on paper. He is on a journey and he is reporting in: ‘This is where I think I am and this is what this place looks like today.’”

“I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.”

“The manner of the scout was seriously impressive, though no longer distinguished by any signs of unmanly apprehension. It was evident that his momentary weakness had vanished with the explanation of a mystery which his own experience had not served to fathom...”

“Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand.”

“His heart hurt with the wanting of it, the hurt no less painful for being difficult to explain.”

“Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men´s eyes, because they know -or think they know- some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”

“For all species other than us humans, things just are what they are. Our problem is that we’re always trying to figure out what things mean—why things are the way they are. As though the why matters. Don’t waste time on false constructs.”

“It would be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart.”

“The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: ‘Hello — Goodbye!’ and no address. I think the rest of the play will explain itself. . .”

“Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.”

“The conventional explanation, that God sends us the burden He knows that we are strong enough to handle it, has it all wrong. Fate, not God, sends us the problem.”

“Everything can’t be explained by some general biological phrase.”

“The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window.”

“He thought: How difficult is it to explain yourself to yourself. Sometimes there only is, and no knowing.”

His father has left him. It is only when the owner of the bed and breakfast hands him a letter that Alem is given an explanation. Alem’s father admits that because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem’s mother felt Alem would be safer in London - even though it is breaking their hearts to do this.

“Maybe it’s because of our diet. Hey, it’s not my fault wolves eat cute little animals like bunnies and sheep and pigs. That’s just the way we are. If cheeseburgers were cute, fold would probably think you were Big and Bad, too.”

“I could not explain that I simply wanted someone to love. Wholehearted, unreserved, requited.”

“Time was mathematically explicable; it was the heart-the part of the brain represented by the heart- that was the mystery.”

“The burglar who did this may be studying mathematics and doesn’t have the money to buy books. He heard that you were a famous mathematician and so he came here and hit you on the head...”

“I try to explain all this popularity stuff to Rowley (who is probably hovering around the 150 mark, by the way), but I think it just goes in one ear and out the other with him.”

“She explains to her sister how to send a letter: ‘There are big blue boxes on the street with eagles on them, put your letter to me there and a man dressed in blue with and eagle sigil on his breast will take it from the box and bring it to me.”

“Must we turn to the anthropic principle for an explanation? Was it all just a lucky chance? That would seem a counsel of despair, a negation of all our hopes of understanding the underlying order of the universe.”

“Again and again, due justice must be rendered the investigating commission. It had done everything possible not only to catch the criminals but also to explain everything they had done.”