Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable.

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

Everything kind of has a message in it.

There's what people say, and there's what people mean, and I like to explore the difference between the two.

I see 'Hansel and Gretel' as a breakthrough book for me, and one of the reasons is because I started to apply meaning to the hidden details.

Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.

What you look for in a picture is a metaphor, something that means something more, that makes you think about things you've seen or thought about.

There's a side that I want to do just like really retarded arty films like parody, pretentious art films that kind of are supposed to have some deep meaning.

To me, a story can be both concrete and abstract, or a concrete story can hold abstractions. And abstractions are things that really can't be said so well with words.

I got sent some cheese once. I'm not sure if that was saying something about my act, or just because I like cheese.

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.

The drawing and the crafting of the story are fun, but it's the overall meaning that matters to me. It might escape some people who just want to read a comic, and that's fine. The overall meaning is what matters.

I seldom deal in symbolisms; if there be hidden meanings in my verse, they are there without my knowledge.

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

'Arcadia' is obviously a play that's got interesting things in it that are perhaps quite hard to grasp.

Sometimes with good writers you don't spot the theme, but when you come away you realise there has been one.

The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was important.

The myth does not point to a fact; the myth points beyond facts to something that informs the fact

Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

When does an object become a symbol? All I know is you cannot force it.

I'm much more interested in allowing a story to happen, and people find whatever meaning is in there.

It's a little strange to become a kind of symbol of a whole type of analysis.

'Frankenstein' is a work rich in possible meanings, so the horror-show interpretation is as valid as any.

If you love a book you tend not to follow its surface value, you follow the other things in it.