“People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.”

—  Carlos Ruiz Zafón , book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough." by Carlos Ruiz Zafón?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón 149
Spanish writer 1964

Related quotes

“There weren't any villains though. The world was just complicated in various ways, and there weren't any obvious villains to be found. It was excruciating.”

Tatsuhiko Takimoto (1978) writer
Erich Maria Remarque photo

“Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.”

Erich Maria Remarque book The Black Obelisk

Source: The Black Obelisk

Barry Lyga photo

“I’m a complicated man, with complicated taste buds.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

Philip Pullman photo

“People are too complicated to have simple labels.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: The Amber Spyglass

Lee Smolin photo

“We are the result of processes much more complicated than the small aspects of our lives and societies over which we have some control.”

Lee Smolin book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

“Remember, we live in a culture of immediacy. We live in a culture in which simplistic answers override more complicated answers. We live in a culture in which language is reduced to its bare bones. We live in a culture in which language is now in the service of violence.”

Henry Giroux (1943) American academic

Interview with Media For Us, 2019

Charles Mingus photo

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

Statement in Mainliner (July 1977), as quoted in Creativity and the writing process (1982) by Olivia Bertagnolli, p. 182; also partly quoted in Survival Skills for Managers (1981) by Marlene Wilson, p. 19
Variant: Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
As quoted in The Evaluation and Treatment of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (1999) by Nils R. Varney and Richard J. Roberts, p. 303
Context: My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like and apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Katrín Jakobsdóttir photo

“It has been complicated for the past four years (2017–2021) and it will continue to be complicated. But maybe it is also healthy having to work with people who don't agree with you on everything.”

Katrín Jakobsdóttir (1976) 28th Prime Minister of Iceland

Source: Katrín Jakobsdóttir (2021) cited in: " Iceland's left-right coalition takes office for second term https://www.dw.com/en/icelands-left-right-coalition-takes-office-for-second-term/a-59962630" in DW, December 2021.

Joe Satriani photo

“The Squares [his former band] never really fit in. We weren't rock enough. We weren't alternative enough. We weren't new wave enough and we weren't punk enough. Maybe we just weren't the right people for the band.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in "Shred on Arrival" in Guitar World (November 1993).

Related topics