Quotes About Interpretation

Well, your opinion is as good as hers, I think," said Elphaba. "That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

As pessoas dizem «meu Deus!» a toda a hora, mas habitualmente querem dizer «ora bolas».

He spoke in one of the American accents; Lydia couldn't distinguish among them. To her they all sounded dry and tinny. Almost quack-like.

The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time.

You only seem to read in yourself what you have not.

Well, that's not poetry, that's propaganda, and not even good propaganda at that.

Alice less winsome than weird, and treated Lydia like a Cerberus

Well," said Madame Morrible in a carrying tone, "one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the Right of Art.

I know Oz, now, she said, and in the carving of the lintel she found that common ideogram, a Z circled with an O. Usually letters don't hide inside each other, she told Glinda firmly. No, that's true. In Oz, I suppose, something is always hiding...

Well, said Madame Morrible in a carrying tone, one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the Right of Art. I think she's bonders, said Elphaba.

but not what it meant to her. Not how it felt. Because stories, maybe, were drafts of reality based on feelings.

Every act of communication is an act of translation.

So the poor translator must not just go back and forth between two languages, but if he is worthy of his calling must shift between two selves, with all the perils of this induced schizophrenia.

The translator, we should know, is a writer too. As a matter of fact, he could be called the ideal writer because all he has to do is write; plot, theme, characters, and all other essentials have already been provided, so he can just sit down and write his ass off. (p. 8)

Let's say that Person 1 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train. And let's say Person 2 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to volunteer twice a week at a homeless shelter. Is it better to volunteer at a homeless shelter than it is to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train? Of course it is. But you still have a basic problem — which is that you think your hair dryer is talking to you.

The lay reader, who knows only what the biographer tells him, reads . . . in a state of bovine equanimity.

To achieve greater clarity in my actions, I often invoke a "bright-line rule," a useful concept from law. A bright-line rule is a clearly defined rule or standard that eliminates any need for interpretation or decision making.

This phenomenon of pareidolia explains why we see the Man in the Moon or the face of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich (which, by the way, sold for $28,000).

I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do.

Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

A palavra falada, tal como a palavra escrita não me saem facilmente e muito menos quando tenho de me expressar sobre mim mesmo ou sobre o meu trabalho. (...) Aquele que pretende saber algo sobre mim - na qualidade de artista porque apenas esta minha faceta é digna de interesse - deve olhar atentamente para os meus quadros e tentar depreender deles o que sou e o que pretendo.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women