Over Explaining Quotes

#1. Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining--by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like "surprisingly," "predictably" and "of course," which put a value on a fact before the reader encounters the fact. Trust your material.

William Zinsser

#2. If a theory purports to explain everything, then it is likely not explaining much at all.

Massimo Pigliucci

#3. I met a lot of hackers, and some of them were very arrogant. They thought I was stupid because I couldn't follow what they were talking about. But then I met this great guy whom companies hire to find their security holes, and he was very good about explaining so I could understand.

David Lagercrantz

#4. If you have a dream to fulfill,
don't waste your energies explaining how and why.

Paulo Coelho

#5. After explaining how a pearl is made she said: It's how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and give us our beauty.

Beth Hoffman

#6. Although to penetrate into the intimate mysteries of nature and thence to learn the true causes of phenomena is not allowed to us, nevertheless it can happen that a certain fictive hypothesis may suffice for explaining many phenomena.

Leonhard Euler

#7. [The Many-worlds interpretation is the] only completely coherent approach to explaining both the contents of quantum mechanics and the appearance of the world.

Hugh Everett III

#8. I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.

Oscar Wilde

#9. And the venality of those Judaized is incapable of explaining anti-Semitism as a social phenomenon, we will call it the anti-Semitic theory.

A. C. Cuza

#10. They put it like that?' said Glenda, wide-eyed.
'Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,' said Ponder. 'I seriously think they think that it is their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.

Terry Pratchett

#11. I really can't do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something you're more familiar with, because I do not understand it in terms of something you are more familiar with.

Richard Feynman

#12. Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.

Paul Ryan

#13. I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!

Charles Simic

#14. I stopped explaining myself when I realized other people only understand from their level of perception.

Anonymous

#15. I have always enjoyed explaining physics. In fact it's more than just enjoyment: I need to explain physics.

Leonard Susskind

#16. Maybe there's no such thing as real truth, just lots and lots of different ways of explaining the same thing.

Keren David

#17. It is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.

Arthur Henderson

#18. In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

Charles Krauthammer

#19. God's got a lot of explaining to do. Of course, God never explains. When life breaks your heart, you're just supposed to pick up the pieces and start all over, I guess.

Mary Doria Russell

#20. We sometimes feel that if a person tromps over us after we've said no, then we must not have been clear. We can get caught in the trap of explaining again and again, meanwhile letting the other person take advantage of us.

Anne Katherine

#21. In 'The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,' you find a most remarkable collection of scholarly work. Over a hundred people have contributed to explaining what the Constitution says, what it means, how it has been interpreted over the years, and how it is important to people today.

Edwin Meese

#22. He's just explaining the situation to her, but he's all over her every chance he gets! Kureno! Touching Tohru!!!

Natsuki Takaya

#23. The idea of tiny changes cumulated over many steps is an immensely powerful idea, capable of explaining an enormous range of things that would be otherwise inexplicable.

Richard Dawkins

#24. Nuclear episodes stand out in bold print in life story as narrative high points, low points and turning points, explaining how the person has remained the same and how he or she has changed over time.

Dan P. McAdams

#25. In this room hung with the trophies of culture, her story sounded melodramatic and rough. She felt like a squaw explaining how you tanned a deerskin by working brains into the bloody hide and then chewing it all over until it was soft.

Wallace Stegner

#26. God through Prophet Hosea is explaining to us reasons for destructions, calamities, failures and devastations among the people of God. That reason is not seen in demonic activities nor is it seen in prevailing economic situations of the land

Sunday Adelaja

#27. I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together.

Jean-Paul Sartre

#28. It's hard talking about acting, in a way, because it's like explaining a joke: I do think it loses something in the telling.

Martin Freeman

#29. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Van Jones

#30. And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully.

Jane Austen

#31. Writing has been a way of explaining to myself the things I do not understand.

Rosario Castellanos

#32. Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance.

Noel Coward

#33. The notion of getting under the hood and explaining how something works, that's fairly familiar territory to me.

Scott McCloud

#34. As I write, there is a craze for what is called psychoanalysis, or the cure of diseases by explaining to the patient what is the matter with him: an excellent plan if you happen to know what is the matter with him, especially when the explanation is that there is nothing the matter with him.

George Bernard Shaw

#35. If I use the word 'khichdi' in my novel, I don't have to get into the trouble of explaining that it is a dish of rice and lentils. My Indian readers know it.

Ashwin Sanghi

#36. Here is the worst possible way for you to try to figure out if your idea solves somebody's problem: Ask them. The vast majority of entrepreneurs seem to think that explaining their concept in detail to a few people and then asking whether it's a good idea constitutes validation. It does not.

Laura Klein

#37. Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.

Ben Bernanke

#38. And that's the beginning of the primary conversation in African American literature, right there: the African descendant explaining to the European descendant about how white people's actions are affecting the lives of black people.* In

Mat Johnson

#39. Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

Jacqueline Woodson

#40. To feel the soul without explaining it, without vocabulary, and to represent this sensation.

Yves Klein

#41. The best way to solve a problem? Try explaining it to somebody outside your field.

Jonah Lehrer

#42. [It's Not About You, Mr. Santa Claus,] is a fun read and a twist on Christmas, because it does involve Santa Claus and Jesus, and it doesn't say that Santa Claus is bad, but it's the child explaining to Santa Claus the true reason for the season is Jesus.

Soraya Diase Coffelt

#43. Not only have past processes made us what we are-"modern" or "postmodern" selves, rather than "medieval" or "early modern" selves-but by explaining them we both account for and implicitly justify present realities.

Brad S. Gregory

#44. For human words are like shadows, and shadows are incapable of explaining light and between shadow and light there is the opaque body from which words are born..

Jose Saramago

#45. I furnished the body that was needed to sit in the defendant's chair.
[Explaining his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial.]

John T. Scopes

#46. Professor Manley begins his first day of Uglification class by explaining why villains must be ugly to succeed. Ugliness releases you from the surface - from the prison of vanity and youur own looks - and sets you free to embrace the soul within.

Soman Chainani

#47. Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't.

Rebecca Solnit

#48. ... and [thanks] to Ludmila Parks for explaining to me that the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who have read the Brothers Karamazov and those who have not.

Marci Shore

#49. A valuable qualification of a modern politician seems to be a capacity for concealing or explaining away the truth ...

Dorothy Nevill

#50. 5. Your kids will be so grateful if you label and organize your photos now and if you stick a note on keepsakes explaining their significance. We settle a lot of estates, and it's frustrating to the next generation when they don't understand why something was left to them.

Anonymous