#themes

A book isn't a single, static thing with one unarguable meaning. Each reader who comes to it brings his own special knowledge, habits and attitudes. Each reader reads a different book. Each reader imagines a different story. A few years ago, for instance, a friend of my mother's sent me a copy of a test on Rite of Passage that she had given her students. The first question read: "True or False? The theme of Rite of Passage is..." I can't tell you what the presumed themed was, but I can tell you that I didn't recognize it. Beads of sweat leaped out of my forehead. After two more questions, I had to put the test aside. I didn't know the "right" answers. ↗

— Alexei Panshin

#literature #themes #attitude

[On Female Attraction to Men in Uniform] That male military persona feeds a subconscious, passive-aggressive female desire to dominate the warrior as he is perceived an iconic example of masculinity (particularly amongst traditionally warlike cultures). The damsel in distress theme always struck me as embodying this: the hapless, innocently beautiful woman unwittingly enraptures the heroic male so completely that he would risk all to submit to her at his own peril, and quite in spite of it. ↗

— Tiffany Madison

#literature #military-theory #passive-aggressive #romantic-themes #warrior

I believe the biggest themes of life are put into the best focus when held up against the very sharp light of mortality. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#believe #best #biggest #focus #held

All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them. Certain themes keep coming up: justice, loyalty, violence, death, political and social issues, freedom. ↗

— Isabel Allende

#coming #death #end #freedom #haunt

I wanted to get back to my style of 20 years ago after a long period of exploring horror and fantasy themes. ↗

— Dario Argento

#ago #back #exploring #fantasy #get

Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story. ↗

— Chinua Achebe

#almost #automatically #because #characters #come

Once we start hitting lyrical themes that can whack you from all these different perspectives, we know we're onto something special. ↗

— Chester Bennington

#different perspectives #hitting #know #lyrical #once

I do not use the language of my people. I can take liberties with certain themes which the Arabic language would not allow me to take. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#arabic #certain #i #i can #i do

Lyrically I like to use themes that make the listener use his or her imagination, and to give a little of the lessons I've learned in my own life. ↗

— Ronnie James Dio

#her #his #i #imagination #learned

Film scores are often based on short themes, and it helps if you've got some way of developing these themes and making them sometimes last 4 minutes and sometimes last 40 seconds. One ends up doing it subconsciously. ↗

— Anne Dudley

#developing #doing #ends #film #got