Quotes About Symbolism

I still have a 15¢ sticker on the frame of my law degree. It's tainted, so I just leave it in the basement.

Personal adornment is the only cultural form that everybody in the world takes part in.

Every Hermes scarf has a tale.

No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.

A tale is born from an image, and the image extends and creates a network of meanings that are always equivocal.

I think people should read fairy tales, because we're hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.

I love fairy tales because I think that behind fairy tales, there is always a meaning.

What works about fairy tales is that they endure, and the great thing about fairy tales is that you can explore big, epic things that you can't really explore in other situations.

Many poets in Iran have learned to speak almost a secret language, where political issues are talked about in allegorical ways.

Myth is a powerful medium because it talks to the emotions and not the head. It moves us into an area of mystery.

My first American experience was in the harbor of New York City when I saw that amazing big, tall lady. I remember thinking, 'Oh my goodness, a lady runs this country.'

People get very excited about very high elements. That's why Mount Everest is so important - it's not the most difficult mountain, but it's the most famous because it's the tallest.

A criminal court is a very curious place. The seat of a ritual quite as elaborate as any religious one, it lacks in itself any impressiveness or symbolism of architecture. A robed judge in court looks like a catholic bishop would if he were to celebrate mass in some municipal bath-house. There is nothing to make one aware that here the Real Presence is: the presence of death.

Then you better tell whoever is Lucifer, because I'm living in his palace, wearing his clothes, and peeing in his shower.

The Magistrate and Empress stand arm in arm like the monster-movie American Gothic.

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.

You see, the point of the floodlights is not to draw attention to themselves but rather to illuminate the statue. So it is with all of the Church's symbolic expressions of God's revelation in general, and Church doctrine in particular. They do not exist to be the focus of our attention but rather to illuminate the beauty of God and God's saving action in our lives.

When you paint an evil thing, do you invoke it or take away its power?

It's hard to talk about what you believe while you are believing it. Fervor reduces thought to shorthand and all we get is an icon.

A man found a door and hung it on the wall.

And here is the tabernacle reconstructed.

I had four dreams in a row where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.

Yeah? What'd you name all those cats?" Death, Famine, Pestilence, War, and Mr. Whiskers." You named your cats after the riders of the apocal--wait. Mr. Whiskers?" Well, there are only four horsemen.

This was the kind of dress that changed the world. The kind of dress that started religions.