Quotes About Interpretation

The plain man is familiar with blindness and deafness, and knows from his everyday experience that the look of things is influenced by his senses; but it never occurs to him to regard the whole world as the creation of his senses.

Whatever things may have been in their origin, they are what they are, both in themselves and in regard to their indications respecting other beings or influences the existence of which may be implied in theirs.

The dominant question for us with regard to literature has become, 'What does this have to do with me, with life as I know it?' That's the question answered by all these books about how Proust was actually a neuroscientist or how Proust can teach you emotional intelligence.

If you know anything about writing biographies, or what is regarded as a good biography, you have minimum input from the person you are writing about.

I thought we were making a nice little movie. That's how it was regarded by everyone else, too.

A fatwa is a religious edict. Such edicts bind only those who seek to follow the Imam issuing them but can be regarded as an option for others seeking an alternative view.

Although I'm not actually embarrassed by this, I tend not to read books that have awesome movies made from them, regardless of how well or badly the movie represented the actual written story.

When you haven't met someone, regardless of whether they're an author or not, when you're taking their work, and you are in some way filtering it or interpreting it, of course there's potential for them to feel that you have, in some way, not lived up to what it could have been.

I think that, as a filmmaker, you're always making the same film, regardless of how many different stories you tell. This is the case for me, whether I'm making documentaries or fiction films.

I create my own backstory regardless of if I'm told something about the background or not. There's always more that you can develop in your head that makes a character more layered, more honest.

Acting is acting, regardless of the medium.

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the literary scene.

I don't write just to be clever. But sometimes I do. And if you don't have an understanding of the language, then the way in which it's bent doesn't actually register. It's the old you-gotta-paint-like-them-before-you-can-paint-like-you thing.

You can make an album, and people won't get it. Or won't connect with it. Or won't - whatever is going on in the universe at that time, it doesn't really register.

I think the main thing was that the character couldn't speak in regular language, so he had to be mimed.

I respect the Bible and offer namaz regularly. But I am ritualistic only up to a certain extent. I believe only in those rituals that I can understand and connect with, and conduct them my own way.

The rehearsal process is the biggest gift you can give to the director and to yourself as an actor because it allows you to shape the character and the scenes.

An orchestra knows during the first two minutes of the first rehearsal whether or not they are going to enjoy the person on the podium.

James Ivory comes close to the actors for the first rehearsal. He more or less lets you direct yourself and then will only correct you if he finds it incorrect.

I feel like a lot of bands have done amazing covers, but whenever we start working on it, whenever we try it in rehearsal, it never feels right for me to do the song.

Rehearsals are set up so that you find out all the nuances about your character. You never want to beat yourself up. It's about finding the right direction, and most of the time, the right direction is not what you think is the right direction. That's why the director's there: to guide you there.

Rehearsing a play is making the word flesh. Publishing a play is reversing the process.

Producing a one-hour show that has to reinvent musical numbers, and interpret those musical numbers with a large cast, is difficult.

I always just read the play and find a world. That world must honour the play, enhance it, and maybe shine some new light - not satirise or try to reinvent in a way that is placing the idea above the thing. The play is the thing.