Donald E. Westlake Quotes

Even the most straightforward of paths could turn out to be more complicated than it seemd at first.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

… steer clear of bogus simplicity

The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity.

You never do things the easy way, do you?" she said. "There's an easy way?" I asked.

She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.

The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.

There are always going to be some complications.

I want to explain everything to him, show him that it’s really not as screwed up as it all sounds, but then I remember that it is.

You predicted quick victory. Now it’s going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don’t you know any better than that by now?

The Simple Life is not a simple life.

Things rarely happen for a single reason. Even the cleverest and most skilled manipulators recognize that their real art lies in making use of that which they cannot predict.

Everyone in the top of their fields is pouring everything they have into this, which is why it was such a massive undertaking and why filming was extended. It's not because things are going badly. It's because they're so massive and it's so complicated and we want to get it right. We're not just phoning it in. We're taking our time with it because it's really important.

A part of all art is to make silence speak. The things left out in painting, the note withheld in music, the void in architecture - all are as necessary and as active as the utterance itself.

Not everything in the world is easy or powerful.

Pole dancing really isn't as easy as it looks.

Take it easy, take it easyDon't let the sound of your own wheelsDrive you crazy.

Color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.

Marriage is not something that's easy, but nothing in life is easy.

Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. Rhythm might be described as, to the world of sound, what light is to the world of sight. It shapes and gives new meaning. Rhythm was described by Schopenhauer as melody deprived of its pitch.

The challenge is not so much to change the sound. The challenge is to connect and to create something special.

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.

The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple theories: theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification-the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.

It sounds corny to say, but the theater is sacred; something transcendent can occur, and when it does, everyone grows. It's a true communion.