You learn eventually that, while there are no villains, there are no heroes either. And until you make the final discovery that there are only human beings, who are therefore all the more fascinating, you are liable to miss something.
Vice cannot be removed completely, nor is it right that it should be removed.
I learned then that practically no one in the world is entirely bad or entirely good, and that motives are often more important than actions.
When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good - and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"
Right and wrong were shades of meaning, not sides of a coin.
I certainly don't like to play a bad guy. There are no bad people. It's only shades of grey. Also, I am not a great actor who can transform completely into a totally different character for a movie. I am not a trained actor.
The fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it.
Evil borders upon good, and vices are confounded with virtues; as the report of good qualities is delightful to a well-disposed mind, so the relation of the contrary should not be offensive.
I was good and bad, but never wicked.
Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence.
My idea of what's good and bad and right and wrong is maybe greyer than most, and I like writing about that.
Moral issues rarely have yes or no answers. -Myles to Alanna when she asks about the Gift
Terms like 'good' and 'bad' are extremely simplistic in what is a far more complex situation.
I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!
I did say that in-group, authority and purity are necessary for the maintenance of order, but I would never give them a blanket endorsement.
You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.
There is even the dignity of vice.
Crime, like virtue, has its degrees.
I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.
Not all violence is equally reprehensible; not all wars are equally unjust.
The world is not that black and white, Rachel. There are no moral absolutes. It is complex.
Nobody is ever just a straight up protagonist or antagonist - everybody's morally ambiguous.
a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.
Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.
There are some people who make a big distinction between n - a, which they say is OK, and n - - . Now, in my view, it's important to know about that distinction, because some people put a lot of weight on it. I don't.
