Ed Koch Quotes

I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.

I want people to make sense of what I'm talking about.

I'm just trying to understand what's around me as much as anyone else is, really. To draw a bead on a moving target.

Lady Gaga said to me, 'You showed me how it's done.' I have no idea what she meant by 'it.'

Understanding sometimes is not enough to explain something.

when driven to the necessity of explaining, I found that I did not myself understand what I meant.

Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word 'understanding.'

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

Fact explains nothing. On the contrary, it is fact that requires explanation.

Then I obviously didn't understand what it all meant, but I do now.

I'm here to make sense.

Help the man-in-the-street make sense of the bewildering.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice.

Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you, life where things aren't.

All things make sense; you just have to fathom how they make sense.

I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations.

Visual representation of it is essential if we're to come to terms with what it is we've done.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

Complex things, if you don't understand them, it seems complicated. If you understand them, and we know how to handle it, it became simple.