#metaphor

The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor — not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies “out there” in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition. ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#metaphor #mind #nature #change

There I am then back in the saddle, in my numbed heart a prick of misgiving, like one dying of cancer obliged to consult his dentist. ↗

— Samuel Beckett

#simile

It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it. ↗

— Raymond Chandler

#humour #metaphor #simile #simile

GUIL (quietly): Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current… ↗

— Tom Stoppard

#life #metaphor #change

There is no more reason why the features belonging to a picture should be distorted for the purpose of such imaginative suggestion than that the poet's metaphors should spoil his words for the ordinary uses of man. ↗

— William H. Hunt

#distorted #features #his #imaginative #man

Don't worry you will never find a rounded square ↗

— Greigon Selwyn Mott

#inspirational #metaphorical #inspirational

Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?" Allie considered this. "Meaning?" "Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads." "Or tails," suggested Allie. "What are you talking about?" said Lief. "Life and death. ↗

— Neal Shusterman

#heads #life-and-death #metaphor #tails #death

Why did we divorce? I guess you could say we had trouble synchronizing. You know that carnival ride where two cages swing in opposite directions, going higher and higher until they go over the top? That was us. We passed each other all the time, but we never actually stopped in the same place until it was time to get off the ride. ↗

— Diane Hammond

#divorce #imagery #true-artistry #dreams

It would not be fair to say that the fire stole my faith, since in truth it has been slipping away from me all my life, flipping between my fingers like a shiny little minnow--such a far cry from the trophy salmon that dangled from my father's fist. ↗

— Elissa Janine Hoole

#faith

The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply. ↗

— Anne Rice

#been #deeply #express #felt #i