Malcolm Gladwell Quotes

Certainly one of the surprising truths of having a book published is realizing that your book is as open to interpretation as an abstract painting. People bring their own beliefs and attitudes to your work, which is thrilling and surprising at the same time.

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 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.

It's not my job to tell people what a work means.

It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book become one of a million different books . . .

I read the book and I think, "Well, this is the movie we're going to make," and then someone else reads it, and they take a completely different movie from it. And both are valid.

there are people who read my work and accuse me of being political! As far as I'm concerned that's like accusing a dog of having a bark!

Preachers in pulpits talked about what a great message is in the book. No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.

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 think writers like to see how people bring their words to life, and it's always surprising. Always, no matter what, whether it's good or bad, it's always surprising because a whole human being is coming to that piece of writing.

I'm working now on a collection of Shakespearean sonnets, about 100 of them, that I may publish if anyone's interested. My take on life is a little different from the bard's.

Some people try and tell you what the songs are about and it bores me to death.

But I do think it's important to remember that writers do not have a monopoly of wisdom on their books. They can be wrong about their own books, they can often learn about their own books.

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.

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

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

Academics love to make theories about a body of work, but each book consumes the writer and is the sum of his or her world.

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.

I would never undermine a person's interpretation of a creative work.

People would much rather argue their own visions and conceptions about a book than engage in a dialogue with the author, because the author could always trump you with, 'I wrote it.'

It's very important to me that every person takes away their own meaning from a song, and it's why I don't always love spelling out what a song is about for somebody.

Would you ask Picasso to explain 'Guernica?' Would you ask Nabokov to explain 'Lolita?' Would you ask Tolstoy about 'War and Peace?' No, you wouldn't dare.

Because, as we know, almost anything can be read into any book if you are determined enough. This will be especially impressed on anyone who has written fantastic fiction. He will find reviewers, both favourable and hostile, reading into his stories all manner of allegorical meanings which he never intended. (Some of the allegories thus imposed on my own books have been so ingenious and interesting that I often wish I had thought of them myself.)

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

When I first moved up to San Francisco to write Where The Wild Things Are, I had a couple moments where I talked to somebody, and they're like, "Oh, I love that book. I love this part of it," or, "This is what it means to me." And it's like, "Well, I don't know. I guess that's not what I'm making the movie about." But very early on, I don't know, we sort of let go of that fear.