Quotes About Interpretation

But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.

Absolutely," she said. "Artists use them

How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experience. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.

It'd be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow

I like the feeling of being about to confront an experience and resolve it as art. —Eudora Welty

The poem is smarter than the poet and more rebellious. A strong poem will override its author's initial intentions.

As Auguste Comte observed, "All revolutionary ideas are only social applications of the principle of private interpretation.

Exactly. Well, not exactly. She didn't say 'have sex.' She

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don't care that's what poetry is supposed to do.

From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.

My husband said to me while I was swooning in his arms, 'Why are all the longest dances the draggiest?' I took this to mean that he has not loved me for a very long time. Everything means something, or it does not. I have expressed an opinion. Every effect has a source that is not unfamiliar. It's all so evil. ("The Uncanny")

There is no surer basis for fanaticism than bad history, which is invariably history oversimplified.

Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing.

We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost, it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed)."1

Den enes helgon har varit den andres satkärring -- på 1300-talet liksom i nutiden.

Lo poco que entendían algunos comerciantes a sus clientes no dejaba nunca de desconcertarlo.

one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian.

Anybody who does not feel that he would be much happier were he only permitted to understand and obey the commandments of Jesus in a straightforward literal way, and e.g. surrender all his possessions at his bidding rather than cling to them, has no right to this paradoxical interpretation of Jesus' words. We have to hold the two together in mind all the time.

It is not surprising, of course, that those who attempt to discredit the evidence of Scripture are the people who themselves do not seriously read, know, or make a thorough study of the Scriptures.

God's word to me—new every day—in the infinite riches of interpretation.

When a preacher opens the Bible and interprets the word of God, a mystery takes place, a miracle: the grace of God, who comes down from heaven into our midst and speaks to us, knocks on our door, asks questions, warns us, puts pressure on us, alarms us, threatens us, and makes us joyful again and free and sure.