Quotes About Interpretation

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.

I'm not that big a fan of sampling. But I feel like if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it to where it's more of a reimagining of a track. The songs that I do utilize samples on, most of it you wouldn't even be able to tell what it was unless I told you.

As a director, I really have to rely on my first impression because I utilize that to best tell the story - that's all the audience has. I let the scripts be my Bible.

The ideal trademark is one that is pushed to its utmost limits in terms of abstraction and ambiguity, yet is still readable.

It's very, very important to me, no matter who the person is, to play that person with the utmost degree of truth that I'm able to bring. But playing a character like Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka, that requires nothing but a degree of responsibility to the intent of the story - responsibility to the film-maker to deliver the goods.

Almost all words do have color, and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone's eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her, too.

As with 'feminism,' not to mention 'liberalism' and 'conservatism,' 'political correctness' tends to mean what you want it to mean, which also pretty much amounts to utter meaninglessness.

If any syllable that I utter might be interpreted in 13,000 different ways, then the best way for me to never be tarred and feathered is to never open my mouth. So the next time that someone calls on me for an opinion, you know what? I won't say a thing.

The photograph of the Queen sitting stiffly across the table from Glasgow resident Susan McCarron is so natural and expressive that it looks utterly fake. It looks like an artist's portrait, complete with symbolism, humour and poignancy. No wonder the palace and the press have interpreted it in such different ways.

I remember thinking, when I was playing Hedda Gabler, that several sequences of the play were utterly absurd.

I am utterly opposed to all equivocation or obscure expressions in our public acts. We are bound to say plainly what we mean to say. If we mean negotiation and compromise, let us say it distinctly and plainly instead of sending to the President a resolution on which he may put whatever interpretation he pleases.

If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.

I'm a Taurus, which sounds like the name of a pickup truck. I'd prefer to be born under the sign of the rock wallaby. If you're going to interpret your life pursuant to an utterly irrational dogma, why can't it have a cute mascot? Rock wallabies really are fabulous animals, and in any remotely just world, they would have their own star sign.

'Hamlet' is so modern; 'Coriolanus' is utterly alien to our consciousness, and that makes it difficult for us.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me, if that makes any sense.

I don't aim to make art in a vacuum - you want people to like it.

It's important that the actor doesn't feel like they're working in a vacuum. If the actor is told, 'Oh, it's a secret; just play it this way or that way,' it's a bit patronising. I think you have to bring the actor into your thinking and explain things.

Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled 'wrong'.

The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.

I do accept that, with - with respect to those vague terms in the Constitution such as equal protection of the laws, due process of law, cruel and unusual punishments. I fully accept that those things have to apply to new phenomena that didn't exist at the time.

I think what happens with a lot of writing and art is that specificity ends up being relatable while universality becomes vague.

People watch movies - and it's vague ideas, it's vague notions, but people pick up on these things, that they are supposed to think certain ways or that they're not supposed to think, basically, and they don't.

One quality of a good songwriter is to be vague. A vague notion, a vague image, but enough to give the listener the opportunity to make more out of what's being said than is there. That's the great thing about Bob Dylan's songs: We the listeners have made more out of them than he ever intended.