Quotes About Interpretation

The dictionary contains no metaphors.

Even when I'm not looking for a meaning one springs naturally to my mind. Do you think it is a disease?

In India nearly everybody spoke metaphorically except the English who spoke bluntly and could make their most transparent lies look honest as a consequence; whereas any truth contained in these metaphorical rigmaroles was so deviously presented that it looked devious itself.

If there are things you don't know, you call the gap in your knowledge a mystery and fill it in with a wholly emotional answer.

A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.

A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. - Paraphrased from The Boxer

According to Laing, the apparently incomprehensible and self-contradictory language of the schizophrenic is often a gnomic expression of the twisted truth that the patient is unable to express.

Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, I went there---China, India, the Pacific, Albania-- and it wasn't like that. I say, Because I am not you.

because for me, Harry Potter is a Taco Bell 7-Layer Burrito.

Aliens usually missed the point about England by investing its landscape with the passions of its great literature and it had so seldom been seen plainly, without literary footnotes.

The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That's why we go to movies and say, Oh, the book is better.

Up until then, whenever anyone had mentioned the possibility of making a film adaptation, my answer had always been, 'No, I'm not interested.' I believe that each reader creates his own film inside his head, gives faces to the characters, constructs every scene, hears the voices, smells the smells. And that is why, whenever a reader goes to see a film based on a novel that he likes, he leaves feeling disappointed, saying: 'the book is so much better than the film.

The world has a soul and whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of many things.

if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading.

You came so that you could learn about your dreams, said the old woman. And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language, I can interpret what he has said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul, it is only you who can understand.

The trouble with words is that they give us the illusory sense that we are making ourselves understood as well as understanding what others are saying. However, when we turn around and come face-to-face with our destiny, we discover that words are not enough.

Nothing is completely wrong, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

La locura es la incapacidad para comunicar tus ideas. Como si estuvieras en un país extranjero, viendo todo, entendiendo lo que pasa a tu alrededor, pero incapaz de explicarte y ser ayudado porque no entiendes la lengua que hablan allí.

We always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are.

The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader.

Take these, said the old man, holding out a white stone and a black stone that had been embedded at the center of the breastplate. They are called Urim and Thummim. The black signifies 'yes,' and the white 'no.' When you are unable to read the omens, they will help you to do so. Always ask an objective question.

signs are an extremely personal language that we develop throughout our lives, by trial and error, until we begin to understand that God is guiding us.

The world is divided into those who understand me and those who don't. In the case of the latter, I simply leave them to torment themselves trying to gain my sympathy.

the music speaks for itself, there's no need to say anything