Quotes About Interpretation

person who has had a mystical experience knows that all the symbolic expressions of it are faulty. The symbols don't render the experience, they suggest it. If you haven't had the experience, how can you know what it is? Try to explain the joy of skiing to somebody living in the tropics who has never even seen snow. There has to be an experience to catch the message, some clue—otherwise you're not hearing what is being said. MOYERS:

Mythology -and therefore civilization- is a poetic, supernormal image, conceived, like all poetry, in depth, but susceptible of interpretation on various levels.

Mythology is the song. Its the flight of the imagination inspired by the energy of the body.

Silence is a text easy to misread.

It is a good thing for a physician to have prematurely grey hair and itching piles. The first makes him appear to know more than he does, and the second gives him an expression of concern which the patient interprets as being on his behalf.

I don't think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That's why people write novels.

Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words ' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.

Emerson lectured and wrote treaties and essays, and masses of clotted, cabbagey poetry. Reading him is like trying to hack your way through a swamp of creeping verbiage.

Trojan is giving away Magnum large condoms (do you think they were named after a large wooden animal inside which thousands of little men were hiding, ready to jump out and ruin your life?)

Of course, only Americans can name a shop In-n-Out Burger without collapsing into a heap of dirty sniggers. You know the difference between them and us? To us, a double entendre means only one thing; to them, it means absolutely nothing.

more often than not, an exhibition is merely a misplaced object.

To the uneducated an A is just three sticks.

His dress told her nothing, but his face told her things which she was glad to know.

They have no imagination. A tail is just a tail to them, just a little something extra in the back.

If you stop painting policemen in order to paint windmills, criticism remains so overpoweringly policeman-conscious that even a windmill is seen as something with arms out, obviously directing the traffic.

One of the difficulties of thinking clearly about anything is that it is almost impossible not to form our ideas in words which have some previous association for us; with the result that our thought is already shaped along certain lines before we have begun to follow it out. Again, a word may have various meanings, and our use of it in one sense may deceive our readers (or even ourselves) into supposing that we were using it in some other sense.

Okazuje siÄ™ czasami, ?e rzeczy, które zdawaÅ'y siÄ™ bardzo proste, gdy miaÅ'o siÄ™ je w gÅ'owie, stajÄ… siÄ™ caÅ'kiem inne, gdy wychodzÄ… z gÅ'owy na Å›wiat i inni na nie patrzÄ….

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.

?iir bir ?ey anlatmaz demek, anlam? yoktur, anlams?zd?r demek de?ildir. Anlamla yola ç?k?lmaz demektir." ?lhan Berk, 'Poetika', sayfa 61

Dil, anlatma arac? oldu?u de?in tersini de içerir. Kendi d???nda hiçbir ?ey anlatmayabilir. ?öyle de söyleyebiliriz bunu: Anlam?n olmad??? yerde de i?levini sürdürür. ?iirde bu daha belirgindir." ?lhan Berk, 'Poetika', sayfa 11