One of the advantages of travelling the world is that you get to know the world broadly. And one of the advantages of staying in one place is that you get to know the world deeply.
If the audience knew what they wanted then they wouldn't be the audience, they would be the artist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The audience often lacks awareness of their true desires, which distinguishes them from the creators who fulfill those desires.
This quote by Alan Moore highlights a fundamental difference between audiences and artists. Audiences are consumers who may not fully understand their tastes or preferences, while artists possess the insight and creativity to express ideas and emotions that resonate with those audiences. It suggests that the role of the artist is to unveil and articulate the unrecognized wants and needs of their viewers.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of artists in society, this quote can emphasize the role of creators in understanding and interpreting public desires.
More from Alan Moore
All quotes βThe only reality we can ever truly know is that of our perceptions, our own consciousness, while that consciousness, and thus our entire reality, is made of nothing but signs and symbols. Nothing but language. Even God requires language before conceiving the Universe. See Genesis: βIn the beginning was the Word.
My main point about films is that I don't like the adaptation process, and I particularly don't like the modern way of comic book-film adaptations, where, essentially, the central characters are just franchises that can be worked endlessly to no apparent point.
The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws.
When I was working upon the ABC books, I wanted to show different ways that mainstream comics could viably have gone, that they didn't have to follow 'Watchmen' and the other 1980s books down this relentlessly dark route. It was never my intention to start a trend for darkness. I'm not a particularly dark individual.
Love your rage, not your cage.
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A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
Writers are only rarely likable.
Usually, I have a lot of acquaintance with the story before I start writing it. When I didn't have regular time to give to writing, stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them. Now, I do that work by filling notebooks.
There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.
If a given combination of trees, mountains, water, and houses, say a landscape, is beautiful, it is not so by itself, but because of me, of my favor, of the idea or feeling I attach to it.