Subtle Quotes

Joy is a subtle elf; I think one's happiest when he forgets himself.

My first two records were more energetic; Phantom Moon is subtle, quiet; so these various reactions are just something I expected.

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.

Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it's something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand.

In Hitchcock's eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.

But to make a holiday record that involves favorite American songs and then also get to sing about Jesus birth, it just seemed like a real easy, subtle way to combine a couple of things that I love.

It's always obvious to me when someone is looking at me with an idea of who I am and hoping that that's the person I'm going to be. No matter how subtle it is, it's there, and you want to give them who they really want. But it ain't me.

The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions.

Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

I think one thing that helped the sound change, it's a real subtle thing; it's just one switch on my bass, it has three positions, and I usually boost the mid-range frequency, I lowered the frequency that I boost, and that goes out to the sound system, too.

Europe, in legend, has always been the home of subtle philosophical discussion; America was the land of grubby pragmatism.

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.

Poetry is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.

As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating.

In a city like New York, any night can be completely different, even in a subtle way.

Women's fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It's men's way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they're actually tied up.

Often, the disparities in the ways men and women are treated are subtle; there are not these clear barriers that you have to break down.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

I don't sing to people. I sing for them. I told that once to Elvis Presley. He bought it. After that Elvis sang not to but for the audience. A subtle difference.

We didn't care if we were well-liked as long as the movies were good. We served the movie - that was our master at Miramax. In our second incarnation, the movie is still the master but we're getting the same results in more subtle ways.

In London we give ourselves a pat on the back, rightly, for not killing one another, for our prejudice being subtle rather than lethal.

Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here.

The power of ads rests more in the repetition of obvious exhortations than in the subtle transmission of values.

There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors... it's an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.

From the subtle to the extreme, our culture and our values are under unrelenting attack from the media.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

I learned that you don't have to be all over the place, that you can be subtle and you can say what you say. The words that you put together can be just as hilarious as falling all over the place or doing something.