The core problem of human language ... I take to be this: having mastered a language, one is able to understand an indefinite number of expressions that are new to one’s experience, they bear no simple physical resemblance and are in no simple way analogous to the expressions that constitute one’s linguistic experience; and one is able, with greater or less facility, to produce such expressions on an appropriate occasion, despite their novelty, and independently of detecting stimulus configurations, and to be understood by others who share this mysterious ability.
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
It is not surprising that the motion picture relies to a considerable extent on devices borrowed from the theatre. There are many superficial points of resemblance between the two arts. Films are shown in auditoriums which do not differ in any marked degree from other playhouses. Stage actors perform in films. Stage training is still regarded as a fairly satisfactory prerequisite for appearance before the camera. Actors, directors, and writers move from stage to screen with comparative ease and with what seems to be minor adjustments of their techniques and methods. It is often customary to draw a stage curtain back and forth to mark the beginning and end of the drama projected on the screen within the proscenium arch.
—John Howard Lawson (1895–1977)
Wit lies in recognising the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
—Germaine de Staël (1766–1817)