Quotes About Misinterpretation

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. –

As wonderful as dogs can be, they are famous for missing the point.

My needlework teacher suffered from a problem of vision. She recognised things according to expectation and environment. If you were in a particular place, you expected to see particular things. Sheep and hills, sea and fish; if there was an elephant in the supermarket, she'd either not see it at all, or call it Mrs. Jones and talk about fishcakes. But most likely, she's do what most people do when confronted with something they don't understand. Panic.

I don't know which is worse: to be wrongfully accused or mistakenly understood.

The woman tried to teach Winnet her language, and Winnet learned the words but not the language.

Book reviews have never helped me. Most of them erred in their interpretations and their work has been a waste of time.

Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be.

It doesn't make it any easier that people form opinions and make judgment calls and think I'm something that I'm not or do things that I don't.

Whenever people speak, you give the opposition the opportunity to use those words as they see fit.

'Organic' doesn't mean what people think it means.

I had the conviction that lovemaking fools you. The overpowering emotions it induces make you think you're sharing the same feelings as the other person and that they're imagining the same as you.

You keep using that word "Born Again", I don't think it means what you think it means.

I don't really talk about my personal life. It's a strange and funny and weird thing. Sometimes you have a conversation with someone and the paparazzi snaps a picture of you and people decide you're dating. If I try to answer everything people say, I would be up all night.

I am not What you intend me to be.

The fact that Sticky had briefly had a girlfriend, for instance, until she broke up with him for remarking upon her pulchritude. ("She didn't believe me when I told her it meant 'beauty,'" Sticky said.

WHICH LEFT WAS THAT, USELESS?" Kestrel bellowed in his ear. "Are all MudWings this stupid? OR ARE YOU JUST DEAF?" Well, if you keep that up, I will be soon, Clay thought.

The dear Doctor was not leaving yet; he was going to indulge her by staying for a while; and this she said with a smile at Stephen, a smile that Jack intercepted and that gave him a blow as sharp and sudden as a pistol-shot. For although he might mistake signals addressed to himself he could scarcely be mistaken about those flying for another man.

MONDEGREEN. A term for misheard song lyrics, coined by American freelance writer Sylvia Wright (1920–1961) in 1954. It derived from her long-held belief that a song contained the line, "They had slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen." In fact, the line ended with the words, "and laid him on the green.

The saddest task for the ironist is having to tell the listener that it's a joke, because of course it is never a joke.

If you tell most people what libertarians think, they immediately assume that you cannot mean it all the way, that you're really just taking a position for argument's sake.

Very few people ever understand art. If you are lucky, they will buy it for the wrong reasons.

Two boys arrived yesterday with a pebble they said was the head of a dog until I pointed out that it was really a typewriter.

Mr. Crepsley What are you doing? Darren Looking for fangs. Mr. Crepsley We do not grow fangs, you ass!

We don't grow fangs, you idiot!