Richard Cohen Quotes

When we don't have information, we go to the simplest outlook, to black and white. But then we have to lie to ourselves. Black is never as black as you're painting it and white is never as white.

We want to live in the black and white, but we don't. The world is gray. And, I'm always fascinated by people who are clearly, 'This is black and this is white, and that's the way life is.' Life always has something to say about that.

If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

It's really rare in life that a situation is as black and white as we tend to paint it.

We don't live in a world that's black and white.

Most consequential choices involve shades of gray, and some fog is often useful in getting things done.

We always want to find good and bad guys, and I don't believe in that.

I don't accept the idea that there are two sides to any issue. I think that the middle ground is to be found within most of us.

I don't see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.

There's no good guys and bad guys.

People who want to see things in stark dualities are not going to get much out of my music.

I think it's common to want to label things as all good or all bad and what I'm finding is that every situation, person, event, has good and bad in it.

In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

When you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Nothing is black or white, nothing's 'us or them.' But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There's incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.

My life won't be a series of either/ors - musician or actor, rock or country, straitlaced or rebellious, this or that, yes or no. The real choices in life aren't that simple.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

To me, most of life kind of lives in the grey and I don't just mean morally. I just mean kind of everything. If things were black and white it would be a lot clearer as to what to do all the time.

I tend to look for the good in bad people and the bad in good people, to make them human. 'Cause I don't think that people generally are that black and white. Maybe in movie-land they can be... but that isn't necessarily all there is.

There are many movies which come with an attitude of black and white. I am good and you are bad. And there are many movies that are also trying to see the reality as it is or to discover what really is behind the character or events.

No human being in history was all good or all bad, or all black or all white.

I generally don't think most situations can be labeled as black or white.

Because, also the world of showbiz is not just black and white, good and bad.

I don't look at things in black and white. There are big gray areas. There's a lot of slippage.