Thomas Mann Quotes

I think the phrase that resonates from 'Just One Year' is something I sort of live by: 'The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin.'

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

I guess I found it useful to realise that everything is true at once, you know? You can pull back and say, 'Everything will be fine,' but you can also be in a situation and say, 'Not everything is going to be fine.'

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

It took me a long time to learn both good and bad can exist simultaneously.

Two seemingly incompatible conceptions can each represent an aspect of the truth ... They may serve in turn to represent the facts without ever entering into direct conflict.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

As a reader and a writer, I'm happiest when apparently mutually exclusive states can somehow coexist.

That's been a huge recurring thing in growing up - allowing two things to exist in the same space even though, instinctively, they might not be designated to.

A master sees the bad in the good, and the good in the bad.

Everything in life is gray, you know.

Water is good, but if you have too much, you drown. So is water bad, or is it good? It's both.

I go back and forth between wanting to be abundantly simple and maddeningly complex.

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

Some people put up a peace sign with one hand. Some people put up the middle finger instead. I use two hands and put up both.

Contradiction was something I really like when it is embraced in that kind of philosophy.

I don't think there are in life, pure darkness or pure light. Everyone's got a little of everything.

The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.

There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.

I am not by any means a philosopher, although I have worked with some talented people in the discipline. But certain philosophical concepts deeply inform the way I think about the world. The idea of 'opposing truths at extremes' is a powerful concept that I came to appreciate in my twenties.

Is it good or bad?" she asked Issa. The wrong question, she knew. She just couldn't help herself. "It's both, sweet girl," said Issa. "like everything.

The opposite of every truth is just as true.

There is, to be sure, no evil without something good.

The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true.

So much of life is paradox. So much of life is neither one thing nor the other... it's both things at the same time.