Quotes about Interpretation

I want to reach that state of condensation of sensations which constitutes a picture.

There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.

To St. Paul, stripes, stones, shipwrecks, and thorns in the flesh were religious experiences to Judas Iscariot, the daily companionship of Jesus of Nazareth was not.

When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it legalism.

When you are describing, A shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things, With a sort of mental squint.

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.

Whenever a great painter... does a work which appears to be false and lying, that falsity is very true.

Never judge a work of art by its defects.

We just had to stay out-of-the-way [in Fences]. [August Wilson] already wrote a masterpiece. And you really don't know how it's going to work until you get it in front of an audience.

...a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

I don't think we should have justices appointed that decide what they want to hear. It's all about the Constitution the way it was meant to be. And those are the people that I will appoint.

If God did not want us to understand the book of Revelation, He would not have given it to us at all.