Top 100 Subtlety's Quotes
#1. Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.
Alan Cumming
#2. One of the presidential campaigns unveiled more of an infrastructure in place for the next contest than was previously thought to be present, with a spokesperson saying that one of the campaign's strengths is that it does not make an effort to draw attention to with every asset.
New York Times
#3. What's the light of Heaven look like on earth? Like sunlight streaming through clouds in the tackiest garage sale painting you ever saw. Really, it's so beautiful it's embarrassing. No subtlety whatsoever.
Tad Williams
#4. Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.
Alexander McQueen
#5. There's no seduction any more, diary. No subtlety. No tidy-yourself-up in this world. No need for personal pride. There's just the things you're prepared to do - for survival, for fulfillment, for whatever-the-hell-it-is you really need - and the things you're not.
Simon Spurrier
#6. In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design.
Tracy Kidder
#7. There's the conventional wisdom, of which I have none, where you get a record deal, you get a publicist, you get a campaign, and you do the tour, but none of that adds up to things like nuance and subtlety and dynamic.
Chris Robinson
#8. Subtle! Subtlety is bourgeois. Brecht us that when he popped drama's cherry. He fucked drama until it stopped being subtle, like a lady, and started being useful, like a whore.
David Burr Gerrard
#9. It's not a country of articulate people, sophisticated people. There's too little subtlety. Men and women don't enjoy each other very much in Australia. I don't find very many men sexy in Australia. Of course, I'm married and out of it, but still.
Judy Davis
#10. Atty's eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!
Tricia Murphy
#11. An image system is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion.
Robert McKee
#12. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of the exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by the land as it is by genes.
Barry Lopez
#13. Pastries ... can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world.
Muriel Barbery
#14. Our repartee would be rich with subtlety and sarcasm, as smart and funny as midcareer Woody Allen. Our fucking, like Werner Herzog, serious and perplexing.
Ottessa Moshfegh
#15. To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful.
Mark McKinnon
#16. O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
Sun Tzu
#17. Try a little subtlety in self-defense; it'll help, you'll find out.
John Ashbery
#18. Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.
Okakura Kakuzo
#19. And wished with all her heart that she wasn't so tired, wished that a broken wrist would radiate violent pain instead of this strange numbing ache that was exhausting her by its subtlety and consistency.
Dorothy Gilman
#20. Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.
Charles Caleb Colton
#21. Subtlety is the mark of confidence and is thus by far the hardest thing for a writer to achieve.
Noah Lukeman
#23. The greatest realities are physical and economic, all the subtleties of life come afterward.
Joyce Carol Oates
#24. He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety.
Oscar Wilde
#25. It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort.
Joyce Carol Oates
#26. His name tasted of fire and wings, of curling smoke, of subtlety and strength and the rasping whisper of scales. He eyed me and said stiffly, Don't land yourself into a boiling-pot, and as difficult as you may find it, try and present a respectable appearance.
Naomi Novik
#27. Sometimes men present a swagger that suggests a prowess, whether it's sexual or financial. L.A. seems to be a place where trying too hard is almost a given. Some people are unapologetic about how blatantly they represent who they are through what they wear or drive. Subtlety is in short supply.
Michael C. Hall
#29. You have a nicety of awareness of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip.
Frank Herbert
#30. Sandra to Christie on Matt: So he's been a meanie today has he. The boy's got the subtlety of a brick to the head. I do apologize.
Svetlana Chmakova
#31. Sexiness, particularly in movies, is the chess game in the 'Thomas Crown Affair'. It's, it's, I don't know, but Faye Dunaway comes up a lot in that thinking. It's the subtlety of sexiness. The moment you try to be sexy, then it's not.
Daniel Craig
#32. (Psychoanalysis, it seems, does wonders for a man's prose style: it renders it labyrinthine without subtlety.) There is no place, then, for human agency, except the kind that leads you to talk about yourself in the presence of another for twenty years. Shallowness can go no deeper.
Theodore Dalrymple
#33. The distinctive crimes of this generation are crimes of subtlety and finesse.
- ALEXANDER S. BACON 1908
J.M. Carlisle
#34. Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.
Carol Shields
#35. We can do subtle," I assured her.
"It's our middle name," Andrea added.
For some odd reason Rene didn't look convinced.
Ilona Andrews
#36. Poor-quality software has all the subtlety of a neighborhood ice cream truck. You know it's bad for you; you know it's coming a mile away; yet you can't resist.
Eric Brechner
#37. [L]anguage cannot match music's subtlety and preciseness of expression.
Jenefer Robinson
#38. Simplicity and subtlety make for the best con. A distraction should lead the mark's attention upward, either toward the sky or to some better vision of himself. Color signals danger. Try to appear to have as many eyes as possible.
Jeffrey Ford
#39. In preaching conservative doctrine, Goldwater's jeremiads seemed to be preaching the end of the old world, while Reagan's pep talks seemed to trumpet the beginning of a new one.
Scott Farris
#40. At first I'd tried subtlety, but as it happened, Dane's mind - as fierce and strong and powerful as he was - had about the level of subtlety as a locomotive that went off the tracks and then fell off a cliff. And then hit a tree and a nitroglycerine truck.
Lynn Red
#41. There's a depth of meaning all on its own in awareness being gentled. From within the subtlety of being gentled, the level of perception changes. Instead of perceiving the obviousness of experience, you're able as awareness to perceive most subtle meaning.
John De Ruiter
#42. I think a lot of people who read fiction are interested in subtlety. But they wouldn't like my stuff. It's a bit too violent for many tastes.
Martin Amis
#43. Loomis waved a hand and a squiggly trail of smoke followed like a magic wand. Loomis had a captivating subtlety and charm and was capable of more tricks than a sage in Pharaoh's court.
Luke Taylor
#44. People fail to realize there's a difference in kinds of money. There is old money and there is new money. Old money has political power but new money has only purchasing power. (1963)
LIFE Magazine
#45. Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.
Joseph Joubert
#46. That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer's Gifts shop.
Rainbow Rowell
#47. I appreciate subtlety. I have never enjoyed a kiss in front of the camera. There's nothing to it except not getting your lipstick smeared.
Hedy Lamarr
#48. I had reached the conclusion myself that sex was not a division but a continuum, that almost nobody was altogether of one sex or another, and that the infinite subtlety of the shading from one extreme to the other was one of the most beautiful of nature's phenomena.
Jan Morris
#49. Conspicuous lesbians abounded - it's hard to miss teenage queers who have yet to figure out subtlety - and, though I can't deny that I like my girls a little rough, most leaned so heavily on the dyke archetype that they looked like a Timberland truck crashed into Lilith Fair.
Valentine Glass
#50. Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there's a lot of subtlety. That's what I'm proud of.
Ben Folds
#51. Is it not a pity when some stylistic subtlety is lost without trace by the reader's inattention?
David Richards
#52. There is a classic esthetic which romantics often miss because of its subtlety. The classic style is straightforward, unadorned, unemotional, economical and carefully proportioned. Its purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known.
Robert M. Pirsig
#53. The Silvertop and the Goldtop both had subtlety where it was needed but lots of definition as well. I liked the different voicings of the distortion/fuzz elements.
Dweezil Zappa
#54. I like songs with a lot of heart and feeling and subtlety.
Norah Jones
#55. The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.
Michael Foley
#57. I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.
Mira Nair
#58. I am a big one for subtlety and empathy. My dad was softly spoken and didn't carry his honours and accomplishments for everyone to see.
Kyle MacLachlan
#59. Myth isn't about factual or historical truth, but about a deeper truth. In ancient times, people saw myth in a very different light - as a vehicle that can transmit and carry a subtlety and richness of experience that simply cannot be conveyed by linear, conceptual forms of language.
Adyashanti
#60. When playing big festivals, I tend to play big, over the top techno tracks, like hands in the air songs that make sense being played in front of 30,000 people. I steer away from subtlety in the interests of big bombastic dance music.
Moby
#61. I had a real stage school voice and I could do loud things, but it's not about being loud, it's about sensitivity and subtlety in music. You can do so much more with a quiet voice than with a belter.
Amy Winehouse
#62. In movies, there are some things the French do that Americans are increasingly incapable of doing. One is honoring the complexities of youth. It's a quiet, difficult undertaking, requiring subtlety in a filmmaker and perception and patience from us.
Wesley Morris
#63. I sit up talking till daybreak with the young people and we have almost Athenian evenings, Athenian, I mean, only in their intellectual subtlety and refinement.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#64. Playing (Serena) it always felt like playing a steamroller. No subtlety, no finesse, just raw, loud power. To respect this style of play was always a bit tough for me, but of course I had to, because the rules of tennis dont state that having a beautiful game is required to become No. 1.
Martina Hingis
#66. Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.
David Brin
#67. The prince is blind to subtlety. He knows his own ignorance and stupidity so is ever suspicious of others, especially when they say things he does not understand. One cannot negotiate when dragged in the wake of emotions.
Steven Erikson
#68. Music with all its subtlety has immense power to unite people, spread love and bring peace in the world!
Sanchita Pandey
#69. I've learned by watching films that inspired me and people who inspired me like Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I love old school acting. I love subtlety, and I also love being spontaneous, and that's really what works for me.
Alex Pettyfer
#70. After Theda Bara appeared in A Fool There Was, a vampire wave surged over the country. Women appeared in vampire gowns, pendant earrings, and even young girls were attempting to change from frank, open-eyed ingenues to the almond-eyed, carmine-lipped woman of subtlety and mystery.
Mary Pickford
#71. I like very dry humor. I don't like things that are over the top. I like subtlety. I like things that are nonchalant. I like characters that are sort of monotone and based in dark comedy.
Emily Rios
#72. Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.
T. S. Eliot
#73. People lost the capacity of using their brain. It's all about the label. Not about the labels showing but subtlety of the labels.
Barbara Hulanicki
#74. This is without subtlety, he said, as if to himself. His voice was cool and pleasant. His every move was part of a dance, a dance that never ended, even when his body was still, at rest, but for all the power it suggested, there was also a humility, an open simplicity.
William Gibson
#75. There's always the joy of the performance and fine-tuning new interpretations. Over the years, we've all grown as musicians, so obviously there is a lot of subtlety that wasn't there in the first place.
Chris Squire
#76. Faces in the everyday impress us as hives of subtlety. That impression must be sharpened in photography, which discloses only a microsecond of the face's behaviour, immersed in a social process.
Max Kozloff
#77. Interesting. Claws and teeth and ferocity mixed with the subtlety to manipulate creatures larger than itself. A worthy creature.
Katherine Applegate
#78. She says that what you did was a cry for help."
"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.
Holly Black
#79. England gave me a chance. It's a very individual country where people have a personal style; they don't all follow a trend. The subtlety and wit of England is incredible, and they are very creative.
Mario Testino
#81. If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.
Sue Monk Kidd
#82. I will have you know that I have the brightest mind and the keenest wit. Why, people are often astounded by the perspicacity of my discourse and the subtlety of my insight!" He
Sherry Thomas
#83. Githa Hariharan's fiction is wonderful-full of subtleties and humor and tenderness.
Michael Ondaatje
#84. The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.
I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled, Fuck subtle.
Jim Butcher
#85. Jazz is improvisation and syncopation, with resilience and flow, with earthy elegance, nuance and subtlety, with the integrity of individual expression within (usually) a group context, with true democracy in action.
Greg Thomas
#86. 'Star Trek' is notorious for looting the more thoughtful work of writers for their striking effects, leaving behind most of the thought and subtlety.
Gregory Benford
#87. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#88. If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.
Pico Iyer
#89. Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name.
Alice Meynell
#90. As Han once told me, "Stealth and subtlety work well, but for making lasting impressions, a blaster does just fine.
Michael A. Stackpole
#91. Leave it to a dude to roll in with your technique, but use a jackhammer instead of jeweler's screwdrivers.
Roberto Hogue
#92. Work/Loaf Ratio" ... I have spent fourteen years perfecting ... I won't bore you with a long-winded explanation of the "W/LR" save to say that it is an algebraic formula of such complex numeric subtlety that it can be understood only by mathematicians and hobos.
Gary Reilly
#93. A good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it almost seem like a live teacher.
Bertrand Russell
#94. A confused and weak man hides his weakness and uncertainty with fiery speeches.
Rick Perlstein
#95. It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Isaac Asimov
#96. I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.
T. S. Eliot
#97. When you falter, all eludes.
This is a seasick way,
this almost/never touching, this
drawing-off, this to-and-fro.
Subtlety stalks in your eyes,
your tongue knows what it knows.
I want your secrets - Iwillhave them out.
Seasick, I drop into the sea.
Adrienne Rich
#98. Ayrton Senna was an extraordinary racing driver. His skills, craft, subtlety and courage were of such magnitude that he dwarfed his generation of drivers.
Ron Dennis
#99. I generally find subtlety a waste of time.
Cindy Gerard
#100. He took pains to avoid self-depreciation, self-mockery, ambiguity, irony, subtlety, vulnerability, a civilized world-weariness and a tragic sense of history
the very things, he says, that are most natural to him.
Don DeLillo
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