Quotes About Interpretation

We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

We pick bygone time up by the handfuls and, like clay, see if it feels right and then form it into stories about the past.

It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.

Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him !

I think any time you've got a story based on a true story, no matter how accurate it is, obviously it's still fictitious.

The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting - 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors.

I'm not good with time. Like, if I ask you the time and you say A quarter to 2, I wouldn't know. Why can't you just say 2:30?

Art as a whole is a riddle. Another way of putting this is to say that art expresses something while at the same time hiding it.

I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible for loopholes.

When you straddle a thing it takes a long time to explain it.

I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine.

I found that each time I opened my camera and filmed Jerusalem, its image was overtaking what I wanted to express.

Yes" actually means "No" 100% of the time, when the question is "Can I give you some advice?

A hundred and fifty years after Oatman's return, writers—amateur and professional, religious and scholarly—continue to rework it, invariably reflecting their own cultural fantasies as vividly as Oatman's particular experience.

He can only express his feelings through parody.

To level the terrain, to dig down into it, to open the tombs wherein Lol is feigning death, seems to me fairer - given the necessity to fill in the missing links of Lol Stein's story - than to fabricate mountains, create obstacles, rely on chance. And, knowing this woman, I believe she would prefer that I compensate in this way for the lack of cold, hard facts about her life.

La parola scritta m'ha insegnato ad ascoltare la voce umana, press'a poco come gli atteggiamenti maestosi e immoti delle statue m'hanno insegnato ad apprezzare i gesti degli uomini. Viceversa, con l'andar del tempo, la vita m'ha chiarito i libri.

I meno abili, in mancanza di parole e di frasi nelle quali racchiuderla, colgono, della vita, un'immagine povera e piatta; Altri l'appesantiscono, l'ammantano di una dignità che non possiede. Altri ancora, al contrario, l'alleggeriscono, ne fanno una palla vuota e saltellante, che è facile prendere e lanciare in un universo senza peso.

La palabra escrita me enseñó a escuchar la voz humana, un poco como las grandes actitudes inmóviles de las estatuas me enseñaron a apreciar los gestos. En cambio, y posteriormente, la vida me aclaró los libros.

Celui qui prétend se souvenir mot pour mot d'une conversation m'a toujours paru un menteur ou un mythomane. Il ne me reste jamais que des bribes, un texte plein de trous, comme un document mangé des vers. Mes propres paroles, même à l'instant où je les prononce, je ne les entends pas. Quand à celles de l'autre, elles m'échappent, et je ne me souviens que du mouvement d'une bouche à portée de mes lèvres. (p. 202-203)

Qualunque cosa si faccia, si ricostruisce sempre il monumento a proprio modo; ma è già molto adoperare pietre autentiche. Memorie di Adriano, Taccuini di appunti

Il racconto è scritto in prima persona e messo in bocca al personaggio principale, procedimento per il quale io ho una certa predilezione perché elimina dal libro il punto di vista dell'autore, o almeno i suoi commenti, e perché permette di mostrare un essere umano che fronteggia la sua stessa vita e si sforza più o meno onestamente di spiegarla e innanzitutto di ricordarsela.

But don't you know that girls never think of what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they are thinking about? And they have always ten times more to say to the man they don't care for, than to him they do.

We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.