Quotes About Interpretation

Myth is sometimes more important than history.

Actually, a myth is a story that is not just not true, but it's a story that is especially true. And I think the myth of Jesus is especially true.

Norse mythology is mystifying and fantastic and totally confusing, but you can draw a lot of inspiration from it.

If historians don't tell stories at the scales of creation myths, someone else will.

It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality.

You can write and write, but if you don't have someone who can nail that character, it's never going to live.

A lot of people have something to say about 'Wuthering Heights,' but nobody quite nails it.

I have this idealistic and maybe naive thought that almost any song can be anything. If you record one song today, it would maybe be exciting and cool. But I could record the same song next week and it would be something completely different.

As an actress, you have to be very naive.

When I look half naked on stage, it's not because I'm trying to be sexy but because I am dancing and want to be mobile enough to move.

I love trying to give some flesh to rather naked bones sometimes. I've always felt it my duty and to try and bring on the character's off-stage life, what happened that is not revealed.

My mom says it's an American version of the French name Jolie. My dad says I'm named after Al Jolson.

Call it egotistical or narcissist, but I think that's what we all look for in books - the right stories that help us make sense of the world that we, on a very personal level, live in every day.

The narration, in fact, doubles the drama with a commentary without which no mise en scene would be possible.

A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create.

I hear music as narrative.

'Dhruva' is not a first person narrative of Siddharth Abhimanyu.

I don't think I ever watched a movie without being totally immersed in the story. But at the same time, I had to keep some distance from it. I had to question what the narrative was trying to tell me or was injecting in my brain.

Every work of history is a combination of argument and narrative. The longer I write, the more I emphasize the narrative, the story, and the less attention I give to the argument. Arguments come and go.

I used my instincts. It's very easy to imagine how you'd feel, actually. I just had to tell the narrative.

We need narrative; it feeds us in a particular way, and deconstructing it completely before you've actually experienced it, I think it leaves us unfed.

There's no relationship to the narrative anymore. People want their own interpretation of history. We're compartmentalizing, forgetting what came directly before, like it's not a big deal. That, to me, is a crime.

Life only has narrative when we frame it and edit it and call it certain things.