Quotes About Interpretation

'Richard III' is a really difficult play to film - it's involved, often obscure. I felt it absolutely necessary to do more simplification than I've ever done before.

One of the main functions of politicians - and journalists - is to simplify the world for us.

Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.

Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors. All are continually asking, What does this represent? What does it stand for? They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again.

What art does is give us the refinement, all the shades of meaning, of emoting, that we don't have language for. What fascinates me about that is we're talking about an art form in which your medium is language. It's almost a paradox that you're seeing. I want to give you emotion, that if I just relied on diction, I wouldn't have language for it.

It doesn't work if some drivers think red means you must stop, some think it means you can stop, and others think it means to speed up. The same applies to countless threads that weave together to create a coherent society.

Much psychology is like the Bible—it can provide support for almost any conceivable view.

the script and heard the score

El honor significa una cosa para un hombre, y otra distinta para otro.

I never saw the whole picture. I just knew he wasn't close to me. I saw him as not caring. Now I see how he was ducking my bullets and trying to calm me down. I shoot when I get desperate and can't get a reaction any other way.

You put his brain in a bird, the bird would fly backwards -Secret Life of the Bees

When I was finally able to read the Scriptures for myself, I discovered (behold!) there were women.

For years I'd written down my dreams, believing, as I still do, that one of the purest sources of knowledge about our lives comes from the symbols and images deep within.

The night seemed like an inkblot I had to figure out.

To name is to define and shape reality.

I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Was there ever a more galling verse in the Bible?

I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence Was there ever a more galling verse in the Bible?

It was something of a wonder to discover that the human Jesus has so many different faces and that people, even historical Jesus scholars, tend to view him through the lens of their own needs and proclivities. For some he's a political activist. For others, a miracle worker. He's viewed as rabbi, social prophet, religious reformer, wisdom teacher, nonviolent revolutionary, philosopher, feminist, apocalyptic preacher, and on and on.

Your vision means what you want it to mean. It will mean what you make it to mean. I stared at her, baffled, perturbed. Why would God send me a vision if it has no meaning other than what I give to it? What if the point of his sending it is to make you search yourself for the answer?

Could we know the ways of God or not? Did he possess an intention for us, his people, as our religion believed, or was it up to us to invent meaning for ourselves? Perhaps nothing was as I'd thought.

Everything I knew about rape I'd learned from the Scriptures.

he quoted a scripture from Ephesians, reciting from memory. "Slaves, be obedient to them that are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ." Then he made what many, including my mother, would call the most eloquent extemporization on slavery they'd ever heard. "Slaves, I admonish you to be content with your lot, for it is the will of God! Your obedience is mandated by scripture. It is commanded by God through Moses.

It's not meant to be a factual story, but it's still true.