Quotes About Interpretation

What can be explained is not poetry.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living.

When words lose their meaning, physical force takes over. from an essay for Writers by Nancy Crampton

For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings..

Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they're good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples' lives for them. I don't write autobiography.

Gilbert's response to being told they (the words 'ruddy' and 'bloody') meant the same thing was: "Not at all, for that would mean that if I said that I admired your ruddy countenance, which I do, I would be saying that I liked your bloody cheek, which I don't.

The thing that makes poetry different from all other arts [is that] you're using language, which is what you use for everything else--telling lies and selling socks, advertising and conducting law. Whereas we don't write little concerti to each other, or paint pictures.

Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.

Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity.

Dont confuse legibility with communication. Just because something is legible doesnt mean it communicates and, more importantly, doesnt mean it communicates the right thing.

The essence of cross-cultural communication has more to do with releasing responses than with sending messages. It is more important to release the right response than to send the right message.

The meaning of your communication is the response you get.

Don't confuse legibility with communication.

Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point.

The way I make art, the way a lot of people make art, is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important.

Art is a language, an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of communication.

If there is one general law of communication it is that we never communicate as effectively as we think we do.

Misunderstandi ngs happen because we do not understand that different people have different styles of communication.

I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide.

Communication is not saying something; communication is being heard.