Quotes About Interpretation

And what you experience as an attack might in their mind be meant as a defense against your attack. What, you say, you never attacked them? Ah, there's the rub.

the normal course of things, we don't notice the ways in which our story of the world is different from

First, paraphrasing gives you a chance to check your understanding. Difficult conversations are made harder when an important misunderstanding exists, and such misunderstandings are more common than we imagine. Paraphrasing gives the other person the chance to say, "No, that's not quite what I meant. What I really meant was . .

Our past experiences often develop into "rules" by which we live our lives. Whether we are aware of them or not, we all follow such rules. They tell us how the world works, how people should act, or how things are supposed to be. And they have a significant influence on the story we tell about what is happening between us in a difficult conversation.

We Have Different Interpretations

Our Conclusions Reflect Self-Interest

You can begin from the Third Story by saying, "My sense is that you and I see this situation differently. I'd like to share how I'm seeing it, and learn more about how you're seeing it.

Even when we have access to the same data, we tend to notice different things. We are all moving along the same sidewalk, but the historian may notice the brickwork, the jogger the impact on her knees, and the fellow in the wheelchair the areas that are less accessible. We're engulfed by information—far too much to take in—and so we select small samples to pay attention to and ignore the rest.

There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted.

Mer refers to a specific kind of light that was understood in Egypt only during the Eighteenth Dynasty. It was seen as two counterrotating fields of light spinning in the same space, which are generated by certain breathing patterns. Ka refers to the individual spirit and Ba refers to the spirit's interpretation of its particular reality.

A photograph of a woman crying tells me nothing about grief. Or a photograph of a woman ecstatic tells me nothing about ecstasy. What is the nature of these emotions? The problem with photography is that it only deals with appearances.

who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you

The historian without his facts is rootless and futile; the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless.

I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.

A book is not complete until it's read

The historian will tell you what happened. The Novelist will tell you what it felt like. And the historical fiction writer does both!

It is so difficult - at least, I find it difficult - to understand people who speak the truth.

if you like my poems let them walk in the evening,a little behind you then people will say "Along this road i saw a princess pass on her way to meet her lover (it was toward nightfall) with tall and ignorant servants. — E.E. Cummings, "if you like my poems let them," Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems of E.E. Cummings . Liveright February 5, 2001) Originally published 1983.

Cummings had in mind creations of this sort when he said, 'The day of the spoken lyric is past. The poem which has at last taken its place does not sing itself; it builds itself, three-dimensionally, gradually, subtly, in the consciousness of the experiencer.

We view the past, and achieve our understanding of the past, only through the eyes of the present

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.

The images of things are not the things in themselves.

She thanked me again and then said, ''Some people say 'God is in the details.' Others say it's the Devil.'' Margaret replied, 'Maybe it depends on who's reporting the details.

All scripture was written for us, and for our learning ; but they are not all addressed to us, or written concerning us.