Otto Penzler Quotes

It always takes awfully long time to understand unbelievably simple things.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine

To date, the enterprise of thinking has moved us radically away from understanding anything.

As soon as you think you know Clint Eastwood, you don't know Clint Eastwood.

We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment.

Irony can elude the genius among us, sometimes.

Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you." You said the other day life was long," I shot back. "Which is it?" It's both," she said, shrugging. "It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing." Nothing can be two opposite things at once," I said. "It's impossible." No," she replied, squeezing my hand, "what's impossible is that we actually think it could be anything OTHER than that.

I think that's what goes wrong in a lot of people's careers, so many people are afraid to say, "This person has a problem" or "This person maybe shouldn't do this" because they're afraid of losing their jobs.

There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

Winston Churchill - fifty per cent genius, fifty per cent bloody fool.

Tohru: Shigure is always smiling. But, I wonder if I gave him some problems with my request. Yuki: The only ones who can truly understand what Shigure is thinking is Hatori and... a few other people. Someone has said this before. It is said that he is like a "tide..." A tide that carries you away when you get too close to it. The tide touches your feet... But when you reach down to touch it, it will have already departed. It is within your reach, yet you may never catch it.

The real thing about evil," said the Witch at the doorway, "isn't any of what you said. You figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It's like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.

I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don't think it's one motion unfortunately - I wish we could say it's better, better, better - but I think it's better, bad, better, bad - you know?

It will take time to restore chaos

I think that trying to invest through 535 people is a tough job, you know, and so I would give more latitude.

I can't become naked for everybody. It's never going to be possible for the person to write the whole story completely, so I find bits of myself, bits of what I think in some articles. And I don't give lip service to journalists. I never make them feel comfortable. I say, "It's your job to make the story."

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

It's only when I say that everything is incomprehensible that I come as close as possible to understanding the only thing it is given to us to understand.

Life is a paradox. Every truth has its counterpart which contradicts it; and every philosopher supplies the logic his own undoing.

I guess it's just another one of life's little mysteries." "I'm tired of mysteries." "Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like salt in a stew.

Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.

I think the writer's job is to paint the gray because no life is clearly defined.

I think the best-written films or television series have a measure of the opposite of what they are.