Sean Baker 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.

To say a poem is absolute is saying nothing, because an ink blot can be absolute. Yet you put into it what you like. So it becomes totally relative.

Sometimes it's nice to have a song that can be taken more then one way, so it can be interpreted differently.

I try not to spend too much time interpreting my comics for people, because I try to put out there whatever I can, and people can draw whatever conclusions they want.

I really like people to be able to interpret stuff in their own way, I like the ambiguity of the medium. We're just four guys in a band trying to articulate things in a questioning way. Who are we to tell people what to think?

Part of the reason I make things realistic is, I don’t really want to have to explain my work. What I wish to communicate is done so people can make their own interpretation, and if it’s different to my idea it doesn't matter.

Ambiguity is something that I really respond to. I like the complexity of it.

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

I think in some ways, it can do a listener a disservice to explain a song. I think I'd rather leave a little room for people to put themselves in it.

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

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.

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.

Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.

All good art, to me, is uncertainty.

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

I think there are certain questions that get asked in comics over and over again, and people want definitive answers, but I feel like there shouldn't be definitive answers.

I think other people's interpretations of what I've written are a lot better than what I have, because I don't understand a lot of what I write.

We try to write things that can be interpreted on lots of different levels. There's not a right way or a wrong way... people can adventure a little.

Music is completely not reality. There's nothing about music that has any meaning at all. A lot of people disagree with that, but it's basically true. You can listen to a piece of music, and fifteen people will give you fifteen answers of what it's about.

Meaning lies as much in the mind of the reader as in the Haiku.

I prefer images that are less specific, so there is room for everyone's imagination.

The greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out.

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

Perhaps the sketch of a work is so pleasing because everyone can finish it as he chooses.

People will say things after a screening that it affects them in a certain way, which is why I don't like to explain what certain things are about. I want them to have that. It limits people's ability to understand something if I say it's "about this." That's happened to us a bunch on this.