Quotes About Interpretation

I quite deliberately dressed wild animals in tame costumes of my imagination.

The word isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?

And so, when she first heard of Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard Hairless Christians, and that is what they were to her for many years. when I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims

A világ nem egyszer?en olyan, amilyen. Olyan, amilyennek felfogjuk, nem? S azzal, hogy valamit felfogunk, valamit hozzá is teszünk, nem igaz? Nem válik-e ettÅ'l történetté az élet is?

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals of the story without animals?

A story is a wedding in which we listeners are the groom watching the bride coming up the aisle. It is together, in an act of imaginary consummation, that the story is born. This act wholly involves us, as any marriage would, and just as no marriage is exactly the same as another, so each of us interprets a story differently, feels for it differently. A story calls upon us...as individuals-and we like that. Stories benefit the human mind.

But religion is more than rite and ritual. There is what the rite and ritual stand for.

That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality?

The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? (p. 302)

She heard "Hairless Christians", and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?" Mr. Okamoto: "That's an interesting question . . ." Mr. Chiba: "The story with animals." Mr. Okamoto: "Yes. The story with animals is the better story." Pi Patel: "Thank you. And so it goes with God.

Do you understand? You've been praying to a crucified chimpanzee all these years. Your Son of Man is not a god-he's just an ape on a cross!

The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?

And so, when she heard if Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard Hairless Christians, and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.

This means we do not ignore the particularity of biblical commands (and apply them to our own day as if they were timeless universals). Nor are we paralysed by their particularity (and thus unable to apply them to our day at all). We rejoice in their particularity because it shows us how the will of God was expressed in their context, and we take them as our paradigm for our own ethical construction.21

Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize.

Poetry is not a silent art. The poem must perform, unaided, in its reader's head.

Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon... what it means to you.

The Handy Hammer Syndrome, in which the hammer in your hand makes everything look like a nail.

Between ourselves, there is no such thing, abstractly, as a 'good' book. A book is 'good' only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error. A book that is good for me would very likely be punk for you.

Between ourselves, there is no such thing, abstractly, as a 'good' book. A book is 'good' only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error.

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it

The term 'genre' eventually becomes pejorative because you're referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started.