Greg Rucka Quotes

I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it.

I'm the sort of writer who likes to leave doors open for readers.

If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.

I do like to wrap things up and leave some things to the readers' imagination.

The gift of a writer as good as Dickens is not to explain everything; that way, the reader has, in terms of their imagination, somewhere to go.

Naturally, the reader has access only to the events I show and the way I show them, but as has been said, there's generally a good deal of ambiguity in that presentation.

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

I like endings that let your imagination do a lot of the work.

Every great story leaves you questioning. If all of the questions are answered, and everything is resolved, it's boring. There's nothing to talk about afterwards.

Once they're on paper, they're gone. I like to do as much with the words, as far as image goes, so that it's really left open for a lot of things, even though I remember a specific impression of something I had at the time. I can't say a song is about this or that; in fact, I wouldn't even want to. I just prefer to have people live it anyway they want. Because it's theirs after that. There's nothing I can do about it anymore

I would really hate it if I could call up Kafka or Hemingway or Salinger and any question I could throw at them they would have an answer. That's the magic when you read or hear something wonderful - there's no one that has all the answers.

Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you'd know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant 'Da da da da' instead of 'Boom boom boom boom!' Who knows?

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.

My films are like clouds: their meaning keeps changing every minute.

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

Literature is the question minus the answer.

Sometimes people ask if my books have morals or lessons for readers, and I shudder at that thought. I always say that I have more questions than answers.

Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way of answers.

Oftentimes I deliberately put ambiguity into my books so that... the reader is left with an echo of: 'How much of this was from me?'

It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.

All good art, to me, is uncertainty.

I like it when stories are left open.

What we don't understand we can make mean anything.

I'm really interested in the nondefinitive element of abstraction.

Movies tie things up in an arbitrary length of time, but I have always liked things that aren't fully realised.