Quotes About Interpretation

I've often heard it said, a preacher Might learn, with a comedian for a teacher.

He who wants to recognize what is alive and describe it, seeks first to drive the spirit out of it. Then, he holds the parts in his hands. But missing is the spirit's band.

Nothing higher can be accomplished by the epic poet thus interpreting his own time in order to serve the future. (Foreword by Frederick Ungar in Elective Affinities, 1962, Ungar Publishing)

We are never content with portraits of people we know. For that reason I have always felt sorry for portrait painters. We rarely ask the impossible of anyone, but of them we do. They are required to get everybody's relationship with the subject, everybody's affection or dislike, into the picture; and not merely represent their own view of a person but what everybody else's might be too.

Where sense fails it's only necessary [1995] To supply a word, and change the tense.

Men always believe, when they hear words, [2565] There must be thought behind them, too.

How difficult it is to understand one another in this world.

No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.

The most dangerous of all books, so far as the history of the world is concerned, is indubitably the Bible, because no other book has brought so much good and so much evil to the human race.

All things transitory But as symbols are sent.

Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchman. They translate into their own language whatever is said to them and forthwith the thing is utterly changed.

and because it is characteristic of our mind to project confusion and darkness where we have nothing but uncertainty.

Wer das Dichten will verstehen, muß ins Land der Dichtung gehen; wer den Dichter will verstehen, muß in Dichters Lande gehen.

Dobbiamo dunque dar sempre una forma artificiale ai fenomeni naturali, per poter sentirci partecipi del loro accadersi.

Everything is just how I imagined it, yet everything is new

One cannot escape the world more certainly through art, and one cannot bind oneself to it more certainly than through art

La novela es una epopeya subjetiva en la que el autor pide permiso para tratar el universo a su manera; el único problema consiste en saber si tiene o no una manera; el resto viene por añadidura.

Beim Übersetzen muss man bis ans Unübersetzbare herangehen; alsdann wird man aber erst die fremde Nation und die fremde Sprache gewahr.

En mutlu sözcük bile gülünç duruma dü?er, onu dinleyen kulak çarp?ksa e?er.

Interesting she called him. She saw him as interesting-artistically. Under the circumstances, that was about as unflattering as she could get.

A religion is not contained in a single book; there's something religious in almost any book.

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.

The world is exactly like you think it is, and that's why.

You've not revised ... at all?" "Esther ... Surely this shouldn't be a problem. English lit is a no-mark's degree with no vocational value. Just wave your hands around a lot and 'interpret'!