Quotes About Meaning

I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams

None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew what it did. From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.

A work of art encountered as a work of art is an experience, not a statement or an answer to a question. Art is not only about something; it is something. A work of art is a thing _in_ the world, not just a text or commentary _on_ the world.

In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret.

In fact, words do speak louder than pictures. Captions do tend to override the evidence of our eyes; but no caption can permanently restrict or secure a picture's meaning.

That's the source of the meditation on death I've carried in my heart all my life.

To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in order to set up a shadow world of "meanings.

The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

Una fotografía es a la vez una pseudopresencia y un signo de ausencia.

No book is worth reading once if it is not worth reading many times.

Concerning the death of Gertrude Stein: she came out of a deep coma to ask her companion Alice Toklas, 'Alice, Alice, what is the answer?' Her companion replied, 'There is no answer.' Gertrude Stein continued, 'Well, then, what is the question?' and fell back dead.

En lugar de una hermenéutica, necesitamos una erótica del arte.

What we call nihilism (now) I simply call thought. What thinking doesn't lead to nihilism? (pg. 440)

Strictly speaking, nothing that's said is true. (Though one can be the truth, one can't ever say it.)

Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art.

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art.

And suicide is the third, ultimate use of suffering—conceived of not as an end to suffering, but as the ultimate way of acting on suffering.

interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

El contenido puede haber cambiado. Quizá sea ahora menos figurativo, menos lúcidamente realista. Pero aún se supone que una obra de arte es su contenido. O, como suele afirmarse hoy, que una obra de arte, por definición, dice algo («X dice que...», «X intenta decir que...», «Lo que X dijo...», etcétera, etcétera).

Whether the photograph is understood as a naïve object or the work of an experienced artificer, its meaning—and the viewer's response—depends on how the picture is identified or misidentified; that is, on words.

It's better to have a hunger and appreciation for beauty than to be merely beautiful. In the end, life is richer that way. She may learn that.

Art for art's sake, we say, because beauty blesses humanity with a better life.

Nature is God's work, so I say nature motifs are just as spiritual, just as inspirational, as biblical images.

Regardless of Galileo's logic, the highest of arts, I realized, is to uplift the spirit, whatever means one uses.