It says a lot about the success of the X-Men that anyone can read into it whatever they want to. You can find in the X-Men the metaphor that you're seeking, because it's all about difference.
— Phil Jiminez, Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
"I'm a Mormon. The X-Men speak to me". "I'm black". "I'm Asian". "I'm an immigrant". "I'm gay. They speak to me".
— Chris Claremont, Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
What he (Tolkien) means by allegory, of course, is that you could have a one-to-one substitution, so the ring equals, I don't know, nuclear energy. That kind of simple-minded interpretation is exactly what he was trying to avoid, and it's part of his genius that he didn't write an allegorical book. That's why new generations of readers can keep on finding meanings from their own lives, because of what he called applicability: To enable you to fill in the precise meanings of the various things you're reading about from your own experience.
— Dr. Patrick Curry, "J. R. R. Tolkien: Creator of Middle Earth" (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD Extra)
"I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them."
— Freddie Mercury, on Bohemian Rhapsody
"Monsters, Inc. is a film about an energy crisis, and looks at the various means to which corporations achieve their goals and how these means evolve over time. But it is also a film about emerging parenthood, how adult's priorities change over time and find new life meaning for themselves. But it is also about friendship, how a deep trust between two people can get them through almost anything. But it is also about fear, this time fear of the unknown and the widespread panic that it creates. Needless to say, Monsters, Inc. is about a lot of stuff."
— TheRealJims, "Pixar Perfect - Monsters Inc."
"Yes, science-fiction films of both the pulp and serious variety had featured militaristic (and even literal wartime) themes before, but not before Star Wars had a fantastical conflict been so simultaneously evocative of tactile realism and recognizable reference points while also being completely detached from contemporary or historic consequence. On a thematic level, at least, everyone could place themselves on the side of the Rebels, their enemies or obstacles on the side of the Empire, and thrill to the somehow universally appealing spectacle of watching the scrappy revolutionary guerillas—who are also samurai, who are also New Age pacifists, who are also royalist counter-revolutionaries, who are also pirates (kind of), who are also the Air Force—take down the authoritarian/Soviet/Nazi/Nixonian/American/Western Imperial/neo-colonial/militaristic bad guys and their planet-killing war machine representing...whatever the hell 'big ultimate threat in the world' represents to you."
"Every story is a swindle and every writer is a con. Writers do not write 'stories'. Writers write words. These words trick readers into making a story up. That's why stories feel so intimate — they're collaborations. We supply the sentences; readers supply the imagination. Good writers exploit this, convincing readers to imagine something far more interesting than the words they have written."
