Quotes About Interpretation

I never understood a word John Cassavetes said. And I think he did that deliberately.

And to understand this, I think this is a most important point where I would like always to be understood what we do with the New York Philharmonic. That the meaning of the music is number one.

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

If human language, with its logic, is the way God has given us to understand the world, then the Torah must be understood in that same language and with that same logic.

I can't claim to 'understand' 'Byzantium,' if any dance work can be 'understood,' but whenever I see it, I sense that it's charged with meaning.

I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious.

Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation.

I didn't really understand what you did when you went in front of the camera. And then suddenly I just understood it. When you're in a play, you carry the story, but you don't have to do that in film.

The more clearly you write, the more easily and surely you will be understood.

Many times I have written something, and after it was published, I understood what I was saying.

What I've understood is that to be funny is not my job. To see funny is my job.

Journalists like to give themselves credit for being on the hunt for 'the truth.' But if we embrace this undoubtedly noble but somewhat haughty interpretation of a calling, we inevitably become susceptible to slam dunk answers.

Rather than being a 'perversion' of Islam, it is truer to say that the version of Islam espoused by ISIS, while undoubtedly the worst possible interpretation of Islam, and for Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere obviously the most destructive version of Islam, is nevertheless a plausible interpretation of Islam.

British acting is undoubtedly based in text, and American acting relies more on behavior. That's speaking very generally.

To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.

History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.

I loved the idea of Bowie as an artist, with his Burroughsian cut-up technique, creating these undecipherable, abstract songs, where we all projected our own meanings onto his jarring word choices and unexpected chord changes.

Vladimir Nabokov on 'Bleak House' or Henry James on 'The House of the Seven Gables' prove that reading can be an exciting subject in itself, full of passionate encounters, contradictory judgments, striking discoveries, and unexpected reversals.

There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny.

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.

When you can type a few words into a search engine and land on your topic - or when you can scan a Shakespeare play for specific words or symbols - what opportunities might you miss to expand your thinking in unexpected ways?

Whenever I work on a role, I always allow it to subconsciously take me to a place that is magical and unexpected, rather than consciously driving it to a place.

Computers can't find the unexpected, but people can when they eyeball the data.

I have seen 'Sanju,' and it is a well-made commercial film. However, it was left unexplored. I would have directed it with a different approach.