Quotes About Interpretation

For, while the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.

I would like to say to those who think of my pictures as serene, whether in friendship or mere observation, that I have imprisoned the most utter violence in every inch of their surface.

Reading is to an author as listening to music is to a composer. There's music in the words.

Writing novels is really all about making people think, and even more, making them feel things.

Ir you're a writer, reading is part of your job description. ~ Mark Rubinstein

A book being read is a transaction between author & reader, a sharing, giving, taking & a reimagining of the author's offering.

A novel is the final common pathway of a writer's experiences, fears, wishes, thoughts, feelings & fantasies. All is distilled in a novel.

The writer's imagination sets the template for the reader's to take over. The reader is a participant in the imaginative process.

A writer's fiefdom is the entire world--everything seen, heard, felt & thought--all augmented by imagination.

Every reader is a casting director.

Dealing with truth is tough. In a sense, we're all unreliable narrators.

Writing is a way of remaking the world, both for the writer and reader.

The disappointment you feel when viewing the movie version of a character you've imagined while reading the novel.

The interaction between author and reader is the most intimate in the world of art. The reader's imagination shares and completes the writer's.

When you really get down to it, good writing (or good art of any kind) taps deeply into feelings more than anything else.

A good novel is like a fairy tale, a movie, a play, a jazz piece & a symphony resonating in the mind, each in its own way.

Monotheistic Yahwism resembled neither a Greek philosophical notion of Deity as nonsexual Being nor some type of divine bisexuality. Instead, Israelite society perceived Yahweh primarily as a god, embodying traits or values expressed by gendered metaphors yet transcending such particular renderings. It is unnecessary and it is not supported by any biblical text to argue that monotheistic Yahweh involved either androgyny or homoeroticism

Our limited data force a sense of historical fragility: even as I nurture interpretation, I continually run the risk of creating it in my own image.122

Schloen comments: "Tempting as it may be to avoid explicit theorizing, the fact remains that contestable choices are embedded in even the most 'obvious' and innocent-looking of 'common sense' interpretations in archaeology and socio-economic history.

A key prerequisite to thinking and writing funny is understanding funny. And

We think, "Hey. The Bible is holy, so quoting it must make my choices correct." But someone else tried that tactic before. Yeah. His name was Satan.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

Faith clearly means 'to move forward without knowing.' But for the last 300 years at least it's meant 'to know every-thing with certainty.' How has a word come to mean the exact opposite of what is originally meant?