Quotes About Interpretation

There is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I insist that she is, by her nature, equivocal. I shall not be going too far in saying at once that she is politically suspect.

I am not an enormous believer in research being the be-all and end-all. I get suspicious when I read about actors spending six months in a clinic, say, in order to play someone who is sick.

I'm always a bit suspicious of the sort of person who argues by saying 'What would Jesus have said?' They usually mean that they are quite sure Jesus would have agreed with them.

One of the things you hope you've done as a playwright is create roles that can sustain different interpretations.

Breughel is an example of an artist - I mean, this is true about artists and painters in general, but he is a specific example of an artist whose work contains more than you think it does at first glance. Whose work rewards, sustains attention and looking.

We didn't really swallow much of the Jesus thing, but we got the vocab.

You cannot dance an arabesque in 'Swan Lake' and 'Nutcracker' the same way.

People get excited about things like 'Swan Lake' because they generate a personal involvement. If you set up the story properly, audiences respond to the ambiguity. People ask, 'What exactly is happening in Act Four?' and I never say. I can't put it into words, but they've got a feeling about it, and that's good enough.

When I saw the movie 'Black Swan,' I liked the darker aspect of it, the more dramatics, and that's what I like to do for my programs.

It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.

The same myths are told in every culture, and they might swap out details, but it's still the same story. It's the same story, but with a different face.

The fact is that you're never gonna believe any of the reviews, because the movie is to you what it is to you. No one's ever gonna sway you from what you feel about it.

A lot of time, I'd spell things in standard English instead of phonetically because I want people to understand what's going on. It's also very lyrical, and the great thing about lyrical prose is even when you're not totally sure of the words, you can be swayed by the musicality of it.

I briefly considered doing Edgar Allan Poe and just swearing a lot.

But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.

I can appreciate people for being able to go that fast with their left hand, man. But I just can't groove to that beat. I'm sorry. It's just like somebody sweeping the floor or something - tik tik tik tik tik. It just doesn't really jam to me.

It may be that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' but I should be loath to see a rose on a maiden's breast substituted by a flower, however beautiful and fragrant it might be, that is went by the name of the skunk lily.

I try to be an honest originalist! I will take the bitter with the sweet!

I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.

Whenever you're trying to do your own take on a classic piece of literature, it's almost like you're trying to swim up your own stream or drive down your own path.

A lot of the lyrics I write involve images that just swing the song in a way that feels really good to me and there isn't a literal explanation. They're not riddles for the listener to solve.

Novelists do not swing on the same pendulums as critics.

One of the most beautiful things about 'Game of Thrones' is it's told from so many different points of view, and these characters can convince you that what they're doing is right. But they're only showing you a bit of the picture, and when you see it from another character's point of view you may switch allegiances.

In any good piece of writing, it should be easy enough to switch genders.