metaphor

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
99cd48a	Books are the mirrors of the soul.	metaphor soul	Virginia Woolf
dda2c4e	People say that eyes are windows to the soul.	metaphor life inspirational	Khaled Hosseini
9f991b8	Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar	metaphor life zen	Jim Butcher
f9a05b5	I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.	metaphor silence	Haruki Murakami
48dce51	The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.	metaphor life wisdom	Haruki Murakami
3fbd3cc	Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.	metaphor myth religion believers theists organized-religion	Joseph Campbell
1ae7acd	I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you're depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you?	metaphor simile the-blind-assassin secrets	Margaret Atwood
fa186bb	The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.	metaphor psychosis mysticism schizophrenia	Joseph Campbell
25cf7ca	Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.	metaphor life violin	E.M. Forster
78e26ef	And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?	metaphor simile rain copy mimic shakespearean poetic fall wind cry crying despair wit howl	Mervyn Peake
5c41f33	Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.	metaphor humor no-mercy old-testament gods	Joseph Campbell
bb119d4	"The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of	metaphor history science illimitable inexplicability principia solidity origin-of-species possessions intellectual business biology charles-darwin goal justification darwin infinite knowledge ocean isaac-newton newton unknown	Thomas Henry Huxley
cf14ff7	Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.	metaphor people forest trees	James Salter
236ee79	When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.	metaphor the-body-artist	Don DeLillo
89113df	"What's this?" he inquired, none too pleasantly. "A circus?" "No, Julius. It's the end of the circus." "I see. And these are the clowns?" Foaly's head poked through the doorway. "Pardon me for interrupting your extended circus metaphor, but what the hell is that?"	metaphor	Eoin Colfer
25fcde2	"Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.	metaphor myth	James Hillman
60eda8a	And metaphors like cats behind your smile, Each one wound up to purr, each one a pride, Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside (...)	metaphor purr smile pride	Ray Bradbury
a35d265	What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants.	metaphor irony idealism confidence avant-garde ebullience meta-modernism shia-lebouf david-foster-wallace post-ironic art culture postmodernism	Robert Hughes
4c4b1b0	But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.	metaphor lovers love inspirational imagery suggestive	Updike John
722c3b6	Know that diamonds and roses are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs: colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.	metaphor truth rumors	Neil Gaiman
d6b51eb	She's all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday.	metaphor followed harassment	Tamora Pierce
2c5a04c	Islands are metaphors of the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise.	metaphor sexing-the-cherry jeanette-winterson poet	Jeanette Winterson
e2a185d	I feel all agitated, like one of those snow globes you see resting peacefully on shop counters. I was perfectly happy being an ordinary, dull little Swiss village. But now Jack Harper's come and shaken me up, and there are snowflakes all over the place, whirling around until I don't know what I think anymore. And bits of glitter, too. Tiny bits of shiny, secret excitement.	metaphor love	Sophie Kinsella
2d32b81	The LSD phenomenon, on the other hand, is--to me at least--more interesting. It is an intentionally achieved schizophrenia, with the expectation of a spontaneous remission--which, however, does not always follow. Yoga, too, is intentional schizophrenia: one breaks away from the world, plunging inward, and the ranges of vision experienced are in fact the same as those of a psychosis. But what, then, is the difference? What is the difference between a psychotic or LSD experience and a yogic, or a mystical? The plunges are all into the same deep inward sea; of that there can be no doubt. The symbolic figures encountered are in many instances identical (and I shall have something more to say about those in a moment). But there is an important difference. The difference--to put it sharply--is equivalent simply to that between a diver who can swim and one who cannot. The mystic, endowed with native talents for this sort of thing and following, stage by stage, the instruction of a master, enters the waters and finds he can swim; whereas the schizophrenic, unprepared, unguided, and ungifted, has fallen or has intentionally plunged, and is drowning.	metaphor yoga shamanism drowning lsd mysticism schizophrenia	Joseph Campbell
b54a380	Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed for myself,' said Denethor. 'Have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse lay in the dregs?	metaphor sadness cynicism	J.R.R. Tolkien
65482d5	My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.	metaphor mothers memory	Vladimir Nabokov
b0d49c9	The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.	metaphor humor recollection memory	Terry Pratchett
aebebaf	Such is life. We grow up. Planets like Tiny get new moons. Moons like me get new planets.	metaphor life inspirational growing-up	John Green
7f43905	She was a mind floating in an ocean of confusion.	metaphor mind confusion floating ocean sad scared	Caroline B. Cooney
ecbd6ef	I watched the moon alone, unable to share his cold beauty with anyone.	metaphor loneliness nature beauty moon beauty-in-nature sad	Haruki Murakami
7557bfd	His smile was so wide he'd have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway	metaphor	Jerry Spinelli
097015d	"For somewhere," said Poirot to himself, indulging in an absolute riot of mixed metaphors, "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrows into the air, one will come down and hit a glass house!"	metaphor humor mixed-metaphor poirot metaphors	Agatha Christie
90ce133	"Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water."	metaphor science sea-lion snail systems-analyst water	Annie Dillard
59ced71	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.	metaphor simile humour	Raymond Chandler
8e4ecc6	"Imagine for a moment that you are the proud owner of a large house which you have spent years of your life painting and decorating and filling with everything you love. It's your home. It's something you've made your own, something for you to be remembered by, something that, perhaps years later, your children and grandchildren can visit and get a view of your life in. It's part of your creativity, your hard work... it's your property. Now suppose you decide to go camping for a couple of weeks. You lock your door and assume that nobody is going to break in... but they do, and when you return home, to your horror you find that not only do these trespassers break in, but they also have quite uniquely imaginative ways of disrespecting, vandalizing and corrupting everything within your property. They light fires on your lawn, your topiary hedges are in heaps of black ashes. There's some blatantly obscene graffiti splattered across your front door, offensive images and rude words splashed on the walls and windows. Your television has been tipped over. Your photographs of family and friends have had the heads cut out of them. There's mold growing in the refrigerator, bottles of booze tipped over on the table, and cigarette smoke embedded into the carpeting. Your beloved houseplants are dead, your furniture has been stripped down and ruined. Basically, the thing you've spent years working for and creating within your lifetime has been tampered with to the point where it is just a grim joke.	metaphor books funny fanfiction pervy copyright sherlock vandalism imagine house respect ghost geek grave	Rebecca McNutt
e89c62d	Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.	metaphor heartbreaking santa	Barbara Kingsolver
30a3f33	I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it without regret, because I knew that what she was was not contained in that hole in the ground. I entered a new life and found her again, in a woman who was entirely her own person. When this life is done, I'll turn away from it without regret as well, because I know she waits for me, in another, different life.	metaphor love death-of-a-loved-one	John Scalzi
f69b291	Dark-bright fire lit eyes	metaphor brown-eyes dark-eyes description	Audre Lorde
f814f25	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...	metaphor life	Tom Stoppard
ba05990	I should have realized, when Cathal kissed me in the hallway, that my response was the first raindrop heralding a storm.	metaphor love	Juliet Marillier
0b42db3	"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." --	metaphor mind nature	Stephen Jay Gould
5d82eac	The sky is blue,' he said, 'the grass is green.' Looking up, he saw that, on the contrary, the sky is like the veils which a thousand Madonnas have let fall from their hair; and the grass fleets and darkens like a flight of girls fleeing the embraces of hairy satyrs from enchanted woods. 'Upon my word,' he said [...], 'I don't see that one's more true than another. Both are utterly false.	metaphor	Virginia Woolf
f636985	Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds, these ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognize and to which we listen.	metaphor psychology-analysis translation-error proust psychology	Irvin D. Yalom
1429aa6	Listen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can't fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows. As soon as you laugh from nerves or make a joke or say something just to say something or get all involved with the bushes, then you blow open a window in your house of desire and it can't heat up as well. Cold draft comes in.	metaphor house heat	Aimee Bender
57cd612	"Suffering is the fuel in the engine of civilization." -Vergere"	metaphor pain suffering fuel engine jacen-solo new-jedi-order new-republic post-return-of-the-jedi vergere yuuzhan-vong the-force traitor star-wars	Matthew Woodring Stover
0d94b88	Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives. Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did. The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God. I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own.	metaphor murder jesus god poke bean forgiveness survival	Orson Scott Card
5cb05f9	As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.	metaphor birth characters	Milan Kundera
d11c7d9	Though sometimes, first love cauterises the heart, and all any searcher will find thereafter is scar tissue.	metaphor heartbreak heart first-love the-only-story julian-barnes trauma	Julian Barnes
fb65423	It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive, when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.	metaphor	George Eliot
45c17d3	"Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors. All are continually asking, "What does this represent? What does it stand for?" They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again."	metaphor readers writers	Steven Pressfield
4b348df	Cognitive science has something of enormous importance to contribute to human freedom: the ability to learn what our unconscious conceptual systems are like and how our cognitive unconscious functions. If we do not realize that most of our thought is unconscious and that we think metaphorically, we will indeed be slaves to the cognitive unconscious. Paradoxically, the assumption that we have a radically autonomous rationality as traditionally conceived actually limits our rational autonomy. It condemns us to cognitive slavery - to an unaware and uncritical dependence on our unconscious metaphors. To maximize what conceptual freedom we can have, we must be able to see through and move beyond philosophies that deny the existence of an embodied cognitive unconscious that governs most of our mental lives.	metaphor self-knowledge illusion freedom reason cognitive-science embodied-mind limitation thought	George Lakoff
f138e9e	You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way.	metaphor	James S.A. Corey
092b608	Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.	metaphor time pain suffering life-of-pi	Yann Martel
73225a1	Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control.	metaphor theatre self-knowledge masks perception drama speech	George Eliot
740f352	Until the thirst for power parched his throat, he was a fearless and noble lord.	metaphor turn-of-phrase	Lloyd Alexander
324b71e	"I feel I'm at the end of something -- everything is going to be different -- and terrible." "That doesn't sound like you, you ride every wave." "There is one that will drown me."	metaphor the-end the-green-knight iris-murdoch giving-up dialogue resilience	Iris Murdoch
a9887f4	It was a high ceilinged room with tall, large-panes windows. Apart from the doorway was the desk where book had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out. He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.	metaphor library books death apocalypse decay empty zombies dead	Richard Matheson
f3aa980	Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.	metaphor human-race kindness humanity triviality-of-life	W. Somerset Maugham
c98279f	... the future is a teenage crackhead who makes shit up as he goes along.	metaphor future crackhead	Chuck Klosterman
0047eb4	"I lean against my sister's shoulder. "I thought lightning wasn't supposed to strike in the same place twice." "Sure it does," Izzy tells me. "But only if you're too dumb to move." --	metaphor relationships julia-romano lightning sisters	Jodi Picoult
32af080	"Anonymous > Quotes > Quotable Quote "I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don't know where it will take me, because I don't know anything. I could see this inn as a prison, for I'm compelled to wait in it; I could see it as a social centre, for it's here that I meet others. But I'm neither impatient nor common. I leave who will to stay shut up in their rooms, sprawled out on beds where they sleeplessly wait, and I leave who will to chat in the parlours, from where their songs and voices conveniently drift out here to me. I'm sitting at the door, feasting my eyes and ears on the colours and sounds of the landscape, and I softly sing - for myself alone - wispy songs I compose while waiting."	metaphor melancholy	Fernando Pessoa
818ecba	She was lost now, she'd been silenced- another dead branch on Cordova's warped tree.	metaphor nature death horror	Marisha Pessl
fc79326	Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells	metaphor death life microscope pathologist pathology	Yann Martel
4c435a0	"In philosophy, metaphorical pluralism is the norm. Our most important abstract philosophical concepts, including time, causation, morality, and the mind, are all conceptualized by multiple metaphors, sometimes as many as two dozen. What each philosophical theory typically does is to choose one of those metaphors as "right," as the true literal meaning of the concept. One reason there is so much argumentation across philosophical theories is that different philosophers have chosen different metaphors as the "right" one, ignoring or taking as misleading all other commonplace metaphorical structurings of the concept. Philosophers have done this because they assume that a concept must have one and only one logic. But the cognitive reality is that our concepts have multiple metaphorical structurings."	metaphor reason philosophy concept embodied-mind logic	George Lakoff
62bb2e1	I don't think I can marry, I'm not fit for it, I'm not real enough. That's the trouble. I'm a puppet that's realised what's wrong with itself and it's . I'm propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I'm propped up crying in a corner.	metaphor left-out unloved the-message-to-the-planet iris-murdoch outsider single misery sad	Iris Murdoch
0b09a3d	He did not recognize himself either. He was a totally new being, bald, covered with grease and blood, pink and blue eyed: he was his own baby...He was a great fat chuckling baby, and he shat and peed in his filthy trousers and kept driving.	metaphor murder	Peter Straub
b1534a1	We, Brandy and Alfa and me, we've been speaking English as a second language so long that we've forgotten it as our first. I have no native tongue.	metaphor	Chuck Palahniuk
140ef00	...maybe you believe that we fall into our future blindly, drifting from adventure to adventure, our journey zigzagging not according to plan but according to pure chance. Or just maybe, as random and haphazard as our lives seems--maybe that's exactly what the author had in mind.	metaphor	Jodi Picoult
1158c36	She had an idea, but it was the wrong idea. It was hardly even an idea, just a white idea balloon with no writing inside it.	metaphor margaret-atwood the-robber-bride idea	Margaret Atwood
d427829	Walking a short way back along the embankment, almost to where the cross stood, Smiley took another look at the bridge, as if to establish whether anything had changed, but clearly it had not, and though the wind appeared a little stronger, the snow was still swirling in all directions.	metaphor pyrrhic-victory smiley	John le Carré
8d01b76	"Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they	metaphor time mortality immortality death life title speech	David Mitchell
35c17d9	When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin.	metaphor sun	Christopher Paolini
5883112	A faint tickling on the back of his right hand caused Eragon to look down. A huge, wingless cricket clung to his glove. The insect was hideous: black and bulbous, with barbed legs and a massive skull-like head. Its carapace gleamed like oil.	metaphor	Christopher Paolini
371f66c	...you must understand that not even the Jedi know all there is to be known about the Force; no mortal mind can. We speak of the as someone ignorant of gravity might say it is the will of a river to flow to the ocean; it is a metaphor that describes our ignorance. The simple truth - if any truth is ever simple - is that we do not truly know what the will of the Force may be. We can know. It is so far beyond our limited understanding that we can only surrender to its mystery.	metaphor truth old-ben simple-truth surrender-to-mystery the-force the-will-of-the-force obi-wan-kenobi jedi ignorance mystery	Matthew Woodring Stover
d4ed8c1	Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.	metaphor killing death senseless-death skylark waste	Kate Atkinson
b096101	...there is no real person whose embodiment plays no role in meaning, whose meaning is purely objective and defined by the external world, and whose language can fit the external world with no significant role played by mind, brain, or body. Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are metaphorical, meaning is not entirely literal and the classical correspondence theory of truth is false.	metaphor meaning reason truth correspondence embodied-realism embodied-mind objectivity	George Lakoff
a1a49da	The mechanism by which spirituality becomes passionate is metaphor. An ineffable God requires metaphor not only to be imagined but to be approached, exhorted, evaded, confronted, struggled with, and loved. Through metaphor, the vividness, intensity, and meaningfulness of ordinary experiences becomes the basis of a passionate spirituality. An ineffable God becomes vital through metaphor: The Supreme Being. The Prime Mover. The Creator. The Almighty. The Father. The King of Kings. Shepherd. Potter. Lawgiver. Judge. Mother. Lover. Breath. The vehicle by which we are moved in passionate spirituality is metaphor. The mechanism of such metaphor is bodily. It is a neural mechanism that recruits our abilities to perceive, to move, to feel, and to envision in the service not only of theoretical and philosophical thought, but of spiritual experience.	metaphor spirituality religion god cognitive-science embodied-mind	George Lakoff
e2270bb	Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He doesn't hear the impact, can't smell the blood.	metaphor reassurance life poetic-prose wintergirls poetic recovery	Laurie Halse Anderson
859d16e	"Minigolf," she said with stone seriousness, "is a metaphor for life."	metaphor lessons life	Emily Giffin All We Ever Wanted
1e721e9	...explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge.	metaphor mansplaining	Rebecca Solnit
2447f1e	We are all potentially demons to each other, but some close relationships are saved from this fate.	metaphor relationships the-sea-the-sea toxic-relationships iris-murdoch demons	Iris Murdoch
2dc9b4b	Of course we have an 'unconscious mind' and this is partly what my book is about. But there is no general chart of that lost continent. Certainly not a 'scientific' one.	metaphor unknowable the-black-prince subconscious-mind subconscious	Iris Murdoch
38b41d8	He suffers terribly all the time. He lives in fire.	metaphor suffering endless-suffering relentless the-green-knight iris-murdoch torture	Iris Murdoch
575d100	Tulips were a tray of jewels.	metaphor e-m-forster howards-end figurative-language tulips flowers description	E.M. Forster
e3772d4	I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.	metaphor seeing writing listen experience listening	Mark Nepo
a2cea1a	I never knew anyone actually buy cakes when they were hot ...	metaphor hotcakes	Ruth Rendell
b013285	He had been bruised, so to speak, so badly that the eyes of strangers lacerated him like salt.	metaphor james-baldwin wounded	James Baldwin
fe8ba8b	Either way, he was always staring into a bottomless pit, or into a whirlpool that forever sucked him inexorably inward to its vortex.	metaphor romance bottomless-pit dancing-with-clara romance-hero regency-romance mary-balogh angst regency rake despair	Mary Balogh
dbe5231	"These poor souls. These poor pathetic souls." The Emperor gestured toward the passersby. "I don't understand," Tommy said. "Their time has passed and they don't know what to do. They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions." "They have really nice shoes," Tommy said. "They have to look right or their peers will turn on them like starving dogs. They are the fallen gods. The new gods are producers, creators, doers. The new gods are the chinless techno-children who would rather eat white sugar and watch science-fiction films than worry about what shoes they wear. And these poor souls desperately push papers around hoping that a mystical message will appear to save them from the new, awkward, brilliant gods and their silicon-chip reality. Some of them will survive, of course, but most will fall. Uncreative thinking is done better by machines. Poor souls, you can almost hear them sweating."	metaphor reality humor happiness emperor-of-san-francisco shoes	Christopher Moore
21a9af6	... and she was awed to see that vibrant life still struggled to thrive despite such destruction.	metaphor wisdom inspirational garden flowers	Lois Lowry
30bce1f	War is our backyard, famine our feast. Most fear the wind of our wings and even, in their hurt, pray for life. Only a few, a very few, truly pray for death. But we answer all their prayers with the same coin.	metaphor descriptive-writing	Jane Yolen
40351c2	"in our culture, women can do anything a man can. and vice versa." don alfonso's eyebrows shot up. "i do not believe it." "it's true," sally said defiantly. "in America, the women hunt while the men have babies?"	metaphor gender-equality	Douglas Preston
9b44ded	If the rowan's roots are shallow, it bears no crown.	metaphor future past heritage legacy	Ursula K. Le Guin
7aa4028	Her eyes narrowed until they were a faint greenish glitter, like a forest pool far back in the shadow of trees.	metaphor green-eyes	Raymond Chandler
ce59c1f	It is only a metaphor--or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events.	metaphor reality the-only-story julian-barnes memory	Julian Barnes

Books are the mirrors of the soul.

Virginia Woolf

dda2c4e

People say that eyes are windows to the soul.

metaphor life inspirational

Khaled Hosseini

9f991b8

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar

metaphor life zen

Jim Butcher

f9a05b5

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

metaphor silence

Haruki Murakami

48dce51

The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.

metaphor life wisdom

Haruki Murakami

3fbd3cc

Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

metaphor myth religion believers theists organized-religion

Joseph Campbell

1ae7acd

I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you're depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you?

metaphor simile the-blind-assassin secrets

Margaret Atwood

fa186bb

The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.

metaphor psychosis mysticism schizophrenia

Joseph Campbell

25cf7ca

Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.

metaphor life violin

E.M. Forster

78e26ef

And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?

metaphor simile rain copy mimic shakespearean poetic fall wind cry crying despair wit howl

Mervyn Peake

5c41f33

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

metaphor humor no-mercy old-testament gods

Joseph Campbell

bb119d4

"The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of

metaphor history science illimitable inexplicability principia solidity origin-of-species possessions intellectual business biology charles-darwin goal justification darwin infinite knowledge ocean isaac-newton newton unknown

Thomas Henry Huxley

cf14ff7

Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.

metaphor people forest trees

James Salter

236ee79

When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.

metaphor the-body-artist

Don DeLillo

89113df

"What's this?" he inquired, none too pleasantly. "A circus?" "No, Julius. It's the end of the circus." "I see. And these are the clowns?" Foaly's head poked through the doorway. "Pardon me for interrupting your extended circus metaphor, but what the hell is that?"

metaphor

Eoin Colfer

25fcde2

"Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.

metaphor myth

James Hillman

60eda8a

And metaphors like cats behind your smile, Each one wound up to purr, each one a pride, Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside (...)

metaphor purr smile pride

Ray Bradbury

a35d265

What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants.

metaphor irony idealism confidence avant-garde ebullience meta-modernism shia-lebouf david-foster-wallace post-ironic art culture postmodernism

Robert Hughes

4c4b1b0

But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.

metaphor lovers love inspirational imagery suggestive

Updike John

722c3b6

Know that diamonds and roses are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs: colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.

metaphor truth rumors

Neil Gaiman

d6b51eb

She's all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday.

metaphor followed harassment

Tamora Pierce

2c5a04c

Islands are metaphors of the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise.

metaphor sexing-the-cherry jeanette-winterson poet

Jeanette Winterson

e2a185d

I feel all agitated, like one of those snow globes you see resting peacefully on shop counters. I was perfectly happy being an ordinary, dull little Swiss village. But now Jack Harper's come and shaken me up, and there are snowflakes all over the place, whirling around until I don't know what I think anymore. And bits of glitter, too. Tiny bits of shiny, secret excitement.

metaphor love

Sophie Kinsella

2d32b81

The LSD phenomenon, on the other hand, is--to me at least--more interesting. It is an intentionally achieved schizophrenia, with the expectation of a spontaneous remission--which, however, does not always follow. Yoga, too, is intentional schizophrenia: one breaks away from the world, plunging inward, and the ranges of vision experienced are in fact the same as those of a psychosis. But what, then, is the difference? What is the difference between a psychotic or LSD experience and a yogic, or a mystical? The plunges are all into the same deep inward sea; of that there can be no doubt. The symbolic figures encountered are in many instances identical (and I shall have something more to say about those in a moment). But there is an important difference. The difference--to put it sharply--is equivalent simply to that between a diver who can swim and one who cannot. The mystic, endowed with native talents for this sort of thing and following, stage by stage, the instruction of a master, enters the waters and finds he can swim; whereas the schizophrenic, unprepared, unguided, and ungifted, has fallen or has intentionally plunged, and is drowning.

metaphor yoga shamanism drowning lsd mysticism schizophrenia

Joseph Campbell

b54a380

Stir not the bitterness in the cup that I mixed for myself,' said Denethor. 'Have I not tasted it now many nights upon my tongue, foreboding that worse lay in the dregs?

metaphor sadness cynicism

J.R.R. Tolkien

65482d5

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.

metaphor mothers memory

Vladimir Nabokov

b0d49c9

The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.

metaphor humor recollection memory

Terry Pratchett

aebebaf

Such is life. We grow up. Planets like Tiny get new moons. Moons like me get new planets.

metaphor life inspirational growing-up

John Green

7f43905

She was a mind floating in an ocean of confusion.

metaphor mind confusion floating ocean sad scared

Caroline B. Cooney

ecbd6ef

I watched the moon alone, unable to share his cold beauty with anyone.

metaphor loneliness nature beauty moon beauty-in-nature sad

Haruki Murakami

7557bfd

His smile was so wide he'd have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway

metaphor

Jerry Spinelli

097015d

"For somewhere," said Poirot to himself, indulging in an absolute riot of mixed metaphors, "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrows into the air, one will come down and hit a glass house!"

metaphor humor mixed-metaphor poirot metaphors

Agatha Christie

90ce133

"Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water."

metaphor science sea-lion snail systems-analyst water

Annie Dillard

59ced71

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.

metaphor simile humour

Raymond Chandler

8e4ecc6

"Imagine for a moment that you are the proud owner of a large house which you have spent years of your life painting and decorating and filling with everything you love. It's your home. It's something you've made your own, something for you to be remembered by, something that, perhaps years later, your children and grandchildren can visit and get a view of your life in. It's part of your creativity, your hard work... it's your property. Now suppose you decide to go camping for a couple of weeks. You lock your door and assume that nobody is going to break in... but they do, and when you return home, to your horror you find that not only do these trespassers break in, but they also have quite uniquely imaginative ways of disrespecting, vandalizing and corrupting everything within your property. They light fires on your lawn, your topiary hedges are in heaps of black ashes. There's some blatantly obscene graffiti splattered across your front door, offensive images and rude words splashed on the walls and windows. Your television has been tipped over. Your photographs of family and friends have had the heads cut out of them. There's mold growing in the refrigerator, bottles of booze tipped over on the table, and cigarette smoke embedded into the carpeting. Your beloved houseplants are dead, your furniture has been stripped down and ruined. Basically, the thing you've spent years working for and creating within your lifetime has been tampered with to the point where it is just a grim joke.

metaphor books funny fanfiction pervy copyright sherlock vandalism imagine house respect ghost geek grave

Rebecca McNutt

e89c62d

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

metaphor heartbreaking santa

Barbara Kingsolver

30a3f33

I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it without regret, because I knew that what she was was not contained in that hole in the ground. I entered a new life and found her again, in a woman who was entirely her own person. When this life is done, I'll turn away from it without regret as well, because I know she waits for me, in another, different life.

metaphor love death-of-a-loved-one

John Scalzi

f69b291

Dark-bright fire lit eyes

metaphor brown-eyes dark-eyes description

Audre Lorde

f814f25

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...

metaphor life

Tom Stoppard

ba05990

I should have realized, when Cathal kissed me in the hallway, that my response was the first raindrop heralding a storm.

metaphor love

Juliet Marillier

0b42db3

"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." --

metaphor mind nature

Stephen Jay Gould

5d82eac

The sky is blue,' he said, 'the grass is green.' Looking up, he saw that, on the contrary, the sky is like the veils which a thousand Madonnas have let fall from their hair; and the grass fleets and darkens like a flight of girls fleeing the embraces of hairy satyrs from enchanted woods. 'Upon my word,' he said [...], 'I don't see that one's more true than another. Both are utterly false.

metaphor

Virginia Woolf

f636985

Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds, these ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognize and to which we listen.

metaphor psychology-analysis translation-error proust psychology

Irvin D. Yalom

1429aa6

Listen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can't fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows. As soon as you laugh from nerves or make a joke or say something just to say something or get all involved with the bushes, then you blow open a window in your house of desire and it can't heat up as well. Cold draft comes in.

metaphor house heat

Aimee Bender

57cd612

"Suffering is the fuel in the engine of civilization." -Vergere"

metaphor pain suffering fuel engine jacen-solo new-jedi-order new-republic post-return-of-the-jedi vergere yuuzhan-vong the-force traitor star-wars

Matthew Woodring Stover

0d94b88

Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives. Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did. The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God. I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own.

metaphor murder jesus god poke bean forgiveness survival

Orson Scott Card

5cb05f9

As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.

metaphor birth characters

Milan Kundera

d11c7d9

Though sometimes, first love cauterises the heart, and all any searcher will find thereafter is scar tissue.

metaphor heartbreak heart first-love the-only-story julian-barnes trauma

Julian Barnes

fb65423

It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive, when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.

metaphor

George Eliot

45c17d3

"Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors. All are continually asking, "What does this represent? What does it stand for?" They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again."

metaphor readers writers

Steven Pressfield

4b348df

Cognitive science has something of enormous importance to contribute to human freedom: the ability to learn what our unconscious conceptual systems are like and how our cognitive unconscious functions. If we do not realize that most of our thought is unconscious and that we think metaphorically, we will indeed be slaves to the cognitive unconscious. Paradoxically, the assumption that we have a radically autonomous rationality as traditionally conceived actually limits our rational autonomy. It condemns us to cognitive slavery - to an unaware and uncritical dependence on our unconscious metaphors. To maximize what conceptual freedom we can have, we must be able to see through and move beyond philosophies that deny the existence of an embodied cognitive unconscious that governs most of our mental lives.

metaphor self-knowledge illusion freedom reason cognitive-science embodied-mind limitation thought

George Lakoff

f138e9e

You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way.

metaphor

James S.A. Corey

092b608

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

metaphor time pain suffering life-of-pi

Yann Martel

73225a1

Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control.

metaphor theatre self-knowledge masks perception drama speech

George Eliot

740f352

Until the thirst for power parched his throat, he was a fearless and noble lord.

metaphor turn-of-phrase

Lloyd Alexander

324b71e

"I feel I'm at the end of something -- everything is going to be different -- and terrible." "That doesn't sound like you, you ride every wave." "There is one that will drown me."

metaphor the-end the-green-knight iris-murdoch giving-up dialogue resilience

Iris Murdoch

a9887f4

It was a high ceilinged room with tall, large-panes windows. Apart from the doorway was the desk where book had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out. He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.

metaphor library books death apocalypse decay empty zombies dead

Richard Matheson

f3aa980

Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.

metaphor human-race kindness humanity triviality-of-life

W. Somerset Maugham

c98279f

... the future is a teenage crackhead who makes shit up as he goes along.

metaphor future crackhead

Chuck Klosterman

0047eb4

"I lean against my sister's shoulder. "I thought lightning wasn't supposed to strike in the same place twice." "Sure it does," Izzy tells me. "But only if you're too dumb to move." --

metaphor relationships julia-romano lightning sisters

Jodi Picoult

32af080

"Anonymous > Quotes > Quotable Quote "I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don't know where it will take me, because I don't know anything. I could see this inn as a prison, for I'm compelled to wait in it; I could see it as a social centre, for it's here that I meet others. But I'm neither impatient nor common. I leave who will to stay shut up in their rooms, sprawled out on beds where they sleeplessly wait, and I leave who will to chat in the parlours, from where their songs and voices conveniently drift out here to me. I'm sitting at the door, feasting my eyes and ears on the colours and sounds of the landscape, and I softly sing - for myself alone - wispy songs I compose while waiting."

metaphor melancholy

Fernando Pessoa

818ecba

She was lost now, she'd been silenced- another dead branch on Cordova's warped tree.

metaphor nature death horror

Marisha Pessl

fc79326

Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells

metaphor death life microscope pathologist pathology

Yann Martel

4c435a0

"In philosophy, metaphorical pluralism is the norm. Our most important abstract philosophical concepts, including time, causation, morality, and the mind, are all conceptualized by multiple metaphors, sometimes as many as two dozen. What each philosophical theory typically does is to choose one of those metaphors as "right," as the true literal meaning of the concept. One reason there is so much argumentation across philosophical theories is that different philosophers have chosen different metaphors as the "right" one, ignoring or taking as misleading all other commonplace metaphorical structurings of the concept. Philosophers have done this because they assume that a concept must have one and only one logic. But the cognitive reality is that our concepts have multiple metaphorical structurings."

metaphor reason philosophy concept embodied-mind logic

George Lakoff

62bb2e1

I don't think I can marry, I'm not fit for it, I'm not real enough. That's the trouble. I'm a puppet that's realised what's wrong with itself and it's . I'm propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I'm propped up crying in a corner.

metaphor left-out unloved the-message-to-the-planet iris-murdoch outsider single misery sad

Iris Murdoch

0b09a3d

He did not recognize himself either. He was a totally new being, bald, covered with grease and blood, pink and blue eyed: he was his own baby...He was a great fat chuckling baby, and he shat and peed in his filthy trousers and kept driving.

metaphor murder

Peter Straub

b1534a1

We, Brandy and Alfa and me, we've been speaking English as a second language so long that we've forgotten it as our first. I have no native tongue.

metaphor

Chuck Palahniuk

140ef00

...maybe you believe that we fall into our future blindly, drifting from adventure to adventure, our journey zigzagging not according to plan but according to pure chance. Or just maybe, as random and haphazard as our lives seems--maybe that's exactly what the author had in mind.

metaphor

Jodi Picoult

1158c36

She had an idea, but it was the wrong idea. It was hardly even an idea, just a white idea balloon with no writing inside it.

metaphor margaret-atwood the-robber-bride idea

Margaret Atwood

d427829

Walking a short way back along the embankment, almost to where the cross stood, Smiley took another look at the bridge, as if to establish whether anything had changed, but clearly it had not, and though the wind appeared a little stronger, the snow was still swirling in all directions.

metaphor pyrrhic-victory smiley

John le Carré

8d01b76

"Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they

metaphor time mortality immortality death life title speech

David Mitchell

35c17d9

When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin.

metaphor sun

Christopher Paolini

5883112

A faint tickling on the back of his right hand caused Eragon to look down. A huge, wingless cricket clung to his glove. The insect was hideous: black and bulbous, with barbed legs and a massive skull-like head. Its carapace gleamed like oil.

metaphor

Christopher Paolini

371f66c

...you must understand that not even the Jedi know all there is to be known about the Force; no mortal mind can. We speak of the as someone ignorant of gravity might say it is the will of a river to flow to the ocean; it is a metaphor that describes our ignorance. The simple truth - if any truth is ever simple - is that we do not truly know what the will of the Force may be. We can know. It is so far beyond our limited understanding that we can only surrender to its mystery.

metaphor truth old-ben simple-truth surrender-to-mystery the-force the-will-of-the-force obi-wan-kenobi jedi ignorance mystery

Matthew Woodring Stover

d4ed8c1

Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

metaphor killing death senseless-death skylark waste

Kate Atkinson

b096101

...there is no real person whose embodiment plays no role in meaning, whose meaning is purely objective and defined by the external world, and whose language can fit the external world with no significant role played by mind, brain, or body. Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are metaphorical, meaning is not entirely literal and the classical correspondence theory of truth is false.

metaphor meaning reason truth correspondence embodied-realism embodied-mind objectivity

George Lakoff

a1a49da

The mechanism by which spirituality becomes passionate is metaphor. An ineffable God requires metaphor not only to be imagined but to be approached, exhorted, evaded, confronted, struggled with, and loved. Through metaphor, the vividness, intensity, and meaningfulness of ordinary experiences becomes the basis of a passionate spirituality. An ineffable God becomes vital through metaphor: The Supreme Being. The Prime Mover. The Creator. The Almighty. The Father. The King of Kings. Shepherd. Potter. Lawgiver. Judge. Mother. Lover. Breath. The vehicle by which we are moved in passionate spirituality is metaphor. The mechanism of such metaphor is bodily. It is a neural mechanism that recruits our abilities to perceive, to move, to feel, and to envision in the service not only of theoretical and philosophical thought, but of spiritual experience.

metaphor spirituality religion god cognitive-science embodied-mind

George Lakoff

e2270bb

Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He doesn't hear the impact, can't smell the blood.

metaphor reassurance life poetic-prose wintergirls poetic recovery

Laurie Halse Anderson

859d16e

"Minigolf," she said with stone seriousness, "is a metaphor for life."

metaphor lessons life

Emily Giffin All We Ever Wanted

1e721e9

...explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge.

metaphor mansplaining

Rebecca Solnit

2447f1e

We are all potentially demons to each other, but some close relationships are saved from this fate.

metaphor relationships the-sea-the-sea toxic-relationships iris-murdoch demons

Iris Murdoch

2dc9b4b

Of course we have an 'unconscious mind' and this is partly what my book is about. But there is no general chart of that lost continent. Certainly not a 'scientific' one.

metaphor unknowable the-black-prince subconscious-mind subconscious

Iris Murdoch

38b41d8

He suffers terribly all the time. He lives in fire.

metaphor suffering endless-suffering relentless the-green-knight iris-murdoch torture

Iris Murdoch

575d100

Tulips were a tray of jewels.

metaphor e-m-forster howards-end figurative-language tulips flowers description

E.M. Forster

e3772d4

I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.

metaphor seeing writing listen experience listening

Mark Nepo

a2cea1a

I never knew anyone actually buy cakes when they were hot ...

metaphor hotcakes

Ruth Rendell

b013285

He had been bruised, so to speak, so badly that the eyes of strangers lacerated him like salt.

metaphor james-baldwin wounded

James Baldwin

fe8ba8b

Either way, he was always staring into a bottomless pit, or into a whirlpool that forever sucked him inexorably inward to its vortex.

metaphor romance bottomless-pit dancing-with-clara romance-hero regency-romance mary-balogh angst regency rake despair

Mary Balogh

dbe5231

"These poor souls. These poor pathetic souls." The Emperor gestured toward the passersby. "I don't understand," Tommy said. "Their time has passed and they don't know what to do. They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions." "They have really nice shoes," Tommy said. "They have to look right or their peers will turn on them like starving dogs. They are the fallen gods. The new gods are producers, creators, doers. The new gods are the chinless techno-children who would rather eat white sugar and watch science-fiction films than worry about what shoes they wear. And these poor souls desperately push papers around hoping that a mystical message will appear to save them from the new, awkward, brilliant gods and their silicon-chip reality. Some of them will survive, of course, but most will fall. Uncreative thinking is done better by machines. Poor souls, you can almost hear them sweating."

metaphor reality humor happiness emperor-of-san-francisco shoes

Christopher Moore

21a9af6

... and she was awed to see that vibrant life still struggled to thrive despite such destruction.

metaphor wisdom inspirational garden flowers

Lois Lowry

30bce1f

War is our backyard, famine our feast. Most fear the wind of our wings and even, in their hurt, pray for life. Only a few, a very few, truly pray for death. But we answer all their prayers with the same coin.

metaphor descriptive-writing

Jane Yolen

40351c2

"in our culture, women can do anything a man can. and vice versa." don alfonso's eyebrows shot up. "i do not believe it." "it's true," sally said defiantly. "in America, the women hunt while the men have babies?"

metaphor gender-equality

Douglas Preston

9b44ded

If the rowan's roots are shallow, it bears no crown.

metaphor future past heritage legacy

Ursula K. Le Guin

7aa4028

Her eyes narrowed until they were a faint greenish glitter, like a forest pool far back in the shadow of trees.

metaphor green-eyes

Raymond Chandler

ce59c1f

It is only a metaphor--or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events.

metaphor reality the-only-story julian-barnes memory

Julian Barnes