Subtext Quotes

“The text has disappeared under the interpretation.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“I like books. I thought you liked books."

"Let's be honest, Rudy, books are pornography for brains. All that subtext and bullshit and hidden imagery.”
― Hannah Moskowitz, Teeth

“Do you think she was gay before or after she started watching Xena?" the male squirrel asked. "That subtext works like a nasty termite. It undermines the structure of human females from within.”
― Blayne Cooper, The Story of Me

“I really don't like art with a message, unless the message is crystal clear.
If you have a message that really needs to be said, just fuckin' say it! Don't hide it in indecipherable lyrics... a sculpture, it's a play, the subtext... just fuckin' say it, 'cause the people who need to hear messages are dumb as shit--the masses of humanity are dumb as shit, and you're really just pandering to your friends. Say what the fuck you mean, just say it! Title the song 'eat more leafy greens'. 'Give a hoot, don't pollute' is as much message and art combined, 'cause I get that, it's a poem but I'm pretty sure you're saying 'don't pollute'. But if you have something... 'ooh, I have the cure for cancer...and I've hidden it in this Rubix cube!!' -- just fuckin' say it!
- Before Turning the Gun on Himself [2012]”
― Doug Stanhope

“Despite my affection for subtext and plot and prose at its best... life, it turns out, is nothing more than the finer details.”
― Bailey Vincent, The Details of How We Lived

“After you've spent four years kissing somebody's perineum, the subtext talks louder than words.”
― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

“This was a feeling I had often, the sense of a subtext.”
― Catherine Lacey, The Answers

“Neither of us was quite sure what the other meant, but, as in dreams, our words could be taken in so many ways, which was fine too, because we liked thinking they had more than one meaning, one obvious, one not so obvious, one hinted at but so muddled that neither of us knew which to grasp, because each was so laced into the others that all three ultimately meant one and the same thing.”
― André Aciman, Enigma Variations

“If I was a boy, we'd run away together, and have a capital time; but as I'm a miserable girl, I must be proper, and stop at home. Don't tempt me, Teddy, it's a crazy plan.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“BILLY: I finally tapped Eddie on the shoulder, right before the finale, I said, 'Thanks, man. I just wanted to really give ’em a good show since Rolling Stone is out there.'
EDDIE: He said he’d normally let me play but since it was Rolling Stone, he wanted to really do it right.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“What Zach meant to say all along, what he means to say when he speaks of potatoes with cumin is, You strip me clean. It hurts to be near you. I love you so much. Rachel, Rachel. The most. Better than anything.”
― Emma Richler, Be My Wolff

“At any given moment, everyone walks around with a laundry machine of vocabulary. Words spin and cycle in heads after fresh loads of new people, new ideas, and new encounters. This laundry machine of vocabulary hints at what we’re interested in, learning of, struggling with, and thinking about. It changes every few months. If you stick with a person long enough, while they may not confess to you that their family is dying, you wonder why they always come back to words like, “polka-dots,” “temperature” or phrases like “getting old” or “good morning, doc!”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Meetings are power struggles between those who want something and those who don’t want to give it to them. If you’re walking into a meeting and you need something, your first job is to identify this person. This person is the reason the meeting is happening, and if you don’t know who they are, you’re missing essential subtext. It’s actually pretty easy. Just wait for someone to say something controversial and see who everyone looks at.”
― Michael Lopp, Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

“Keep in mind that a person says only ten percent of what lies in his head, ninety percent remains unspoken”
― Constantin Stanislavski