Obscure Quotes - Page 21

• In rural areas the majority of the victims of violent crime know their assailants (indeed, are probably married to them); in cities, the killer and the mugger come out of the anonymous dark, their faces unrecognized, their motives obscure.

  Jonathan Raban

  Dark, Cities, Majority

  Jonathan Raban (2017). “Soft City: Picador Classic”, p.13, Pan Macmillan

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• Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.

  Charles Darwin

  Mean, Long, Natural

  Charles Darwin, James T. Costa (2009). “The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species”, p.6, Harvard University Press

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• Humorists are not humorous twenty-four hours a day. In fact, when you get to know them well, they are often not humorous at all. They tend to be hypersensitive, taut, neurotic creatures driven by God know what obscure compulsion to earn their living the hard way.

  Margaret Halsey

  Humorous, Four, Way

  Margaret Halsey (1946). “Color blind: a white woman looks at the Negro”

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• I'm a bit of a nerd, I wouldn't mind working in a shop selling records, or having a radio show where I could play obscure singles.

  Bjork

  Play, Nerd, Mind

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• It's really a trade-off: you're always having to decide whether you're going to say the more ambitious thing, and lose a little clarity - or are you going to say something really clearly, and sacrifice a little nuance? Get too obscure, and you sound like a pretentious asshole; go overboard with the clarity, and you sound like you're talking down to your audience, or like you yourself are a reductive simpleton.

  Elif Batuman

  Sacrifice, Talking, Ambitious

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure.

  Hugh Hefner

  Men, Ideas, Single Life

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• It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Needs, Investigation, Obvious

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• Bob Dylan has always sealed his decisions with the unexplainable. His motives for withholding the release of the magnificent 'Basement Tapes' will be as forever obscure as Brian Wilson's reasons for the destruction of the tapes for 'Smile.'

  Jon Landau

  Decision, Forever, Tape

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• Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Elephants, Obscurity, Poodles

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook E 36, 1799.

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• The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.

  Henry Miller

  Communication, Writing, Important

  Henry Miller (1959). “The Henry Miller Reader”, p.246, New Directions Publishing

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• All jokes aside, it's a very difficult job playing the straight man. Jason is potentially the most brilliant straight man that ever was because he's also really funny while doing it, which is even harder. I've always seen myself playing characters who are flawed. We use comedy in our lives to obscure the drama.

  Will Arnett

  Jobs, Drama, Character

  "Will Arnett Is Ready To Confront His Own Demons". Interview with Andi Teran, www.elle.com. March 10, 2016.

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• I play popular songs. This is not some obscure, unusual music. This is popular music.

  Frank Fairfield

  Song, Play, Unusual

  "Missed Opportunities". Pitchfork Interview, pitchfork.com.

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• I try to make those references. I try to make sure that they're not too obscure. But outside of that, I dare not claim anything in the spiritual realm for my own.

  Leonard Cohen

  Spiritual, Trying, Claims

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• The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove! - breathe dead hippo, so as to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in - your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business.

  Joseph Conrad

  Smell, Sight, Sound

  Joseph Conrad (2004). “Heart of Darkness”, p.62, Variocity

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• There are strange things lost and forgotten in obscure corners of the newspaper.

  Arthur Machen

  Strange, Forgotten, Lost

  Arthur Machen (2016). “The Great Return: Machen's Collection”, p.1, VM eBooks

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• There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

  Roald Dahl

  Wise, Clever, Memories

  Roald Dahl (1991). “Collected Stories”, Everyman's Library

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• He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Reading, Complaining

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.261, Univ of California Press

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• That's my feeling - that real God and religion are two different things and that religion is trying to obscure what God really is.

  Sinead O'Connor

  Real, Two, Feelings

  "Singer, Songwriter, Boss: Sinéad O'Connor". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I know someone who works in a record shop where I live and I'll go in there and he'll play me "Have you heard this single?". Singles by, er the group called The Tights, so an obscure thing... and a group called, I think, er Bauhaus, a London group. That's one single. There's no one I completely like that I can say "Well I've got all this person's records. I think he's great" or "This group's records" it's just, again, odd things.

  Ian Curtis

  Thinking, Play, Groups

  Source: disordertc.wordpress.com

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• I sponsored every team in the Park Slope Little League for years.I sponsor two soccer teams in England, one of which is called Broadley F.C. A kid wrote to me through Facebook because they started a team in honor of their friend who died of leukemia, and he played in the band of this very obscure team in England.

  Adam Richman

  Soccer, Team, Kids

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• When I started playing solo 10 years ago, I had some ham-fisted idea about trying to subvert the "singer-songwriter" tag/genre, and I tried to obscure my identity into the identity of a collective or band or whatever. That's part of the reason that I used to play with backing tapes and why so much of my early stuff was so awash in tape hiss and echo noise.

  Ted Leo

  Trying, Identity, Reason

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I always wanted to make a cover album consisting of obscure psychedelic music from the 1960s - all re-shaped and customized, Ulver style.

  Kristoffer Rygg

  Style, Albums, Psychedelic

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Oddly, since by now I've written quite a lot on early modern philosophers, I didn't care for the history of philosophy, which I thought dull and obscure, until I got a minor job writing articles for a children's encyclopedia in the history of science and began to make connections between science and philosophy.

  Catherine Wilson

  Jobs, Children, Philosophy

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• As for uniqueness, this is virtually nonexistent! And it's a shame that people think they're unique because they have a face ring, retro clothing, colorful hair, drive a certain kind of automobile or listen to some obscure musician.

  Gary Yourofsky

  Thinking, Unique, Hair

  Source: www.all-creatures.org

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• Every book that comes out, every article that comes out, talks about how - while it may have been a "mistake" or an "unwise effort" - the United States was defending South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression. And they portray those who opposed the war as apologists for North Vietnam. That's standard to say. The purpose is obvious: to obscure the fact that the United States did attack South Vietnam and the major war was fought against South Vietnam.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Mistake, Book

  Source: chomsky.info

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