Quotes About Interpretation

My spiritual evolution I would describe as journey from literalism to figuratism. I now see all religious texts as pointing to an ineffable truth.

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.

I'm an old English major from way back, so I do have fun tearing apart texts and trying to find the hidden secrets and the subtexts in there.

Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work.

Anything based on ancient texts is difficult for a modern reader to get their head around.

One of the great things about history is that it sort of isn't a done deal - ever. The historical texts and the historical evidence that you use is always somehow giving you different answers because you're asking it different questions.

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.

I hate writing texts to girlfriends because you can't really see emotions in texts. You can get confused on what she says.

The conclusion that I have come to is that actually, no religion, whether it's Islam, Christianity or any idea based on scripture or texts, is a religion of 'anything,' really.

I am oblique; I think that has to do with my own nature. I like trying to do things which work on many levels, because I think it is terribly important to give an audience a lot of things they might not get as well as those they will, so that finally the film does take on a texture and is not just simplistic communication.

In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.'

Looking through the camera lens reduces noise; as humans we see a million shapes, colours and textures. What the lens does, what art does in general, is get rid of all the noise. It hones in and isolates the qualities of a scene.

I don't disagree with seeing a Rubens of a nude body, but I don't believe in a nude body in action. With Rubens, thank goodness, they aren't in action.

I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.

At my degree show, someone said, 'It's nice, but it's very feminine.' I said, thank you, taking it as a compliment, but they obviously meant it as an insult.

As an artist, you're thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn't happen all the time. Whether you talk about 'Hamlet' or 'Death of a Salesman,' you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.

You'd have to have one hell of an imagination to completely make up a story, but historians are very anal about what they think should be portrayed on screen. Thankfully they don't make movies; we do.

Playing Lord Ram is a once in a lifetime opportunity and, thankfully, people were convinced with my interpretation of the divine character all those years ago.

I learned so much by being an actor, and part of my sort-of development as a writer is big thanks to the scripts I read in my acting life.

Ideally the performer has a special function. Which is to bring the listener to the edge of that experience and to open the doors of this perception in such a way that those who wish to enter can.

The message of music was also the first thing what I learned from my first teacher. She was an organist too and she was very devoted to what she played, so she had a respect for every piece and she felt that she is not allowed to add something of her own.

It's very difficult for me to look at politics with clear eyes. I'll read a story in the paper and the first thing that pops into my head is, what would my dad say about that? Then I try to break out of that and think, 'What would Said say about that,' and then it gets complicated.

Films are not mathematics - that's the first thing you need to understand. At least, that's how I feel. They are not words on paper. Films are made with people, with teams and with individual bundles of creativity coming together to fulfill the vision of an individual who is the director of the film.