Quotes About Interpretation

What's going on in the game today... it's data vs. art - that's what it comes down to for me. Art being the human heartbeat, data being numbers, the math, etc. I believe there's a balance to be struck right there.

What I do, basically, is look at things from different angles. That is what I do on stage comedically, and that is what I do in art. I was always fascinated by the structure of things, why things work this way and not that way. So I like to see how things behave if you change the point of view.

I think films are bigger than structure.

I think in some ways, acting and writing are the same. You're getting inside the skin of someone else; you're creating their language and their actions. As a writer, you have to see the whole picture and the structure, and you have to understand every character.

You have your structure, but within it, it gets fuller and you can highlight other parts of the performance.

With 'Pretty Deadly,' I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a three-act structure in it. I don't know - someone probably can.

There's a really fine line between artistic license and artistic licentiousness. And history is a lousy filmmaker. It doesn't give you all the ingredients you need. No story will quite fulfill that three-act structure.

The community in which one hears the voice of God structures how one hears that voice and interprets what it says.

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than saying them or telling them.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

I can draw pencil lines to show something is moving, but if I'm writing, I struggle with how to write it. The boy ran down the hallway? The boy ran quickly down the hallway? The boy ran down the marble hallway? I agonize over the words. So my editor works very hard. I'm lucky to have her.

To some it is Napoleon, to some it is a philosophical struggle, to me it is allegro con brio.

'Jihad' can mean holy war to extremists, but it means struggle to the average Muslim.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

I argue that the Talmud is about the constant struggle to understand.

I think Shakespeare is like a dialect. If I heard a broad Scots accent, I'd probably struggle at first but then I'd start to look for words I recognise and I'd get the gist. I think Shakespeare is like that.

I struggled in school. Math and science were difficult for me. But I can watch 10 guys play, and I can tell you what everybody did. It might be a curse because when you see everything, sometimes you don't let your kids play.

If we see a sad rain, it doesn't mean the rain is sad, but it means we see it. That's an easily dismissible kind of projection. But what I'm struggling to say, is that we take that rain in through our own hearts and emotions and senses and skin, and all those filters have an impact.

Actors always have opinions.

I have my own opinions, but my songs don't share them.

When you're a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that's really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff. But when a book comes out, it's just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.

It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.

I leave everyone to have their own opinions of my music and my influence - or not - on others.

In my own opinions as a judge, I have never yet had occasion to find a statute ambiguous.