Richard Steele Quotes

The less manifest the work, the stronger: as though a secret law demanded it always be hidden in what it shows, thus showing what must remain hidden, only showing it, in the end, by dissimulation.

I am never needlessly obscure - I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.

Authors frequently say things they are unaware of; only after they have gotten the reactions of their readers do they discover what they have said

I think that it's worthwhile to explore the ways in which you write the person that's writing your plays as opposed to simply assuming that it's all a natural process and there's no design in it. Because your public persona is designed, to a certain extent, and you can have fun and profit at various times doing that.

I would like to write you so simply, so simply, so simply. Without having anything ever catch the eye, excepting yours alone, ... so that above all the language remains self-evidently secret, as if it were being invented at every step, and as if it were burning immediately

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.

Interesting is when one can produce a picture that is pretty, but with undercurrents. The metaphor that comes to mind is in the poems of Robert Frost.

Tools, of course, can be the subtlest of traps.

There are no accidents... there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood.

I put out a lot of ideas in the lyrics and the way I do my things. There's a lot of ideas floatin' around and people who know what it is. People will pick it up if they know what to pick up.

That said, be mindful, to someone who's never seen any of my work, it's just a movie with actors. So it's only those who of course know the earlier work that will see something is afoot, so to speak. But I don't want to intellectualize.

It would be a lowly art that allowed itself to be understood all at once.

It's a bold statement but I think people need to read between the lines.

There's more to a picture than meets the eye.

In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design.

It is necessary to study these words you have written, for the words have a longer history than you have and say more than you know.

The gods are fond of the cryptic and dislike the evident.

Half the fun of writing a novel is finding out from other people later on what you actually meant.

I obviously do everything to be "hard to understand" myself

The story itself should force its moral upon you. You find out what the moral is by writing the story.

Because the meaning of a story does not lie on its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not exist. Indeed, the ambiguity of meaning, its inner private quality, may well be part of the writer's vision.

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.

One has to work very carefully with what is in between the words. What is not said. Which is measure, which is rhythm and so on. So, it is what you don't write that frequently gives what you do write its power.

A lot can be told from what happens in between the main moments.