Clay Shirky Quotes

There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

There is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say; we must try to determine the different ways of not saying things.

I'm not trying to do something different, I'm trying to do the same thing but in a different way

There is no right and wrong way to paint except honestly or dishonestly. Honestly is trying for the bigger thing. Dishonestly is bluffing and getting through a smattering of surface representation with no meaning.

Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.

Um, yeah, it's one of the things that you kind of have to accept at the very beginning, like I'm not going to try and be super [deep?] factor and no, I can only do it this way, because that's just not how this film's going to work. Like it's got to be sort of a mesh of reality and complete unreality and you kind of have to accept that and go with it.

I don't see the songs as uplifting, but rather as trying to make lemonade from lemons, or whatever. When I listen to them, I understand the context. I don't like to pepper songs with my own experiences, though.

Trying to find the story within the story was hard. Filmmaking is such a reductive process in a strange way and you keep whittling away to what is essential.

Archives exist because there's something that can't necessarily be articulated. Something is said in the gaps between all the information.

It's not that I'm rebelling. It's that I'm just trying to find another way.

Africa is trying to find its way back to a sense of itself, when much of that was lost through colonization.

I'm not just interested in the pictorial aspects of the landscape - see a pretty place and try to paint it - but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what I can turn it into.

I was trying to find my way into the music business still, but I didn't want to portray something that I wasn't. I really wanted to be just me.

Certainly one must try everything, but only to become more certain what God's way is.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, it could be that I've lost my way.

Because things like this you can only ssay once. And you either get it wrong or right, it's the end either way, because it's too hard to ever try to say again.

Every message of despair is the statement of a situation from which everybody must freely try to find a way out.

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

I try to live in such a way that nothing gets bigger than my awareness of God presence on my life.

Throughout life, people will try to shake your faith in yourself. When this happens, remind yourself that the only way they can succeed is if you allow it. When you walk down the street of life, always hold your head high and keep walking. Don't ever let anyone shake your faith in yourself, because that's really all that you have.

Every word is a prejudice.

The best way to solve a problem? Try explaining it to somebody outside your field.

I try very hard to be fair, and I look for ironies. In a way, I live on ironies as a novelist.

I'd address his way of trying to discourage Ian later. After all, he could have come up with something other than saying I was a whiny, smelly, trumpet-snoring bad lay.

You just try to find something that interests you, and particular something that interests you that's gonna consume you the way that these big movies just really eat you up.