Best Literary Devices Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Books. It's always easier to tell people that a character is funny rather than attempt to hit the punchline of a joke that character would've said. But if we all simply told, books would cease to exist. And so would empathy. And feeling.”

Books Empathy Feeling Literary Devices Show Don T Tell

Author:Joyce Rachelle

“As I wrote at Lake City Community College in the mid-90s there were a great many things I could only discuss with the help of literary devices – allusion, allegory, metaphor. And now... I'm just like... "Well, stepdad drank himself to death." May you all find a way to write what you now cannot write.”

Writing Growth Community College Literary Devices

Book:Some Books Are Not For Sale

Source: Some Books Are Not For Sale

“It was no good my knowing that old men have conned young ones like that ever since time began. I still fell for it, as one still falls for the oldest literary devices in the right hands and contexts.”

Literary Devices Conned Beginning Of Time

Book:The Magus

Source: The Magus

“If Scripture were to describe the downfall of an empire in the style adopted by political historians, the common people would not be stirred.”

Politics Scripture Theology Allegory Literary Devices

Book:Theological-Political Treatise

Source: Theological-Political Treatise

“No, Ben. What I’m asking is: Are you the vehicle, and Georgie rides around in you? That is why Ben’s the driver, right?”

Mind Book Reality Literature Books Delusion Book Quotes Mind Control Schizophrenia Delusions Split Personality Literary Devices

Book:Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

Source: Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

“Suspense doesn’t always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story.”

Fiction Suspense Hook Writing Quotes Writing Craft Literary Devices

Author:Sandy Vaile

“Delayed gratification hints that something terrible is going to happen, and then delays the resolution. It’s that interval between the promise of something awful and it actually happening, where suspense resides.”

Fiction Suspense Hook Writing Quotes Writing Craft Delayed Gratification Literary Devices

Author:Sandy Vaile

“Yet I know about how detrimental it alone can be, The audience can see satire as a time for lightheartedness A time to laugh instead of a time to ponder How could I meaningfully address a problem if I only spend time ridiculing it? Satire, I advise myself, “Use it, but use it not to an excessive degree”

Writing Philosophy Wisdom Truth Poetry Literature Satire Literary Devices

Book:For the Intellect

Source: For the Intellect

“Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.”

Source: Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

“Fantasy is probably the oldest literary device for talking about reality.”

Reality Talking Fantasy Devices Literary Devices

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic”

Hard Language Growth Devices Dictionary Literary Devices

Book:The Devil's Dictionary (or The Cynic's Wordbook: Unabridged with all the Definitions)

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (or The Cynic's Wordbook: Unabridged with all the Definitions)

“HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.”

Knows Food Cooking Definitions Culinary Nobody Knows Hash Literary Devices

Book:The Devil's Dictionary: A Selection of the Bitter Definitions of Ambrose Bierce

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: A Selection of the Bitter Definitions of Ambrose Bierce

“Of course I didn't pioneer the use of food in fiction: it has been a standard literary device since Chaucer and Rabelais, who used food wonderfully as a metaphor for sensuality.”

Has Beens Use Used Courses Fiction Standards Metaphor Sensuality Devices Pioneers Chaucer Literary Devices

Author:Joanne Harris

“It is interesting to note that poetry, a literary device whose very construct involves the use of words, is itself the word of choice by persons grasping to describe something so beautiful it is marvelously ineffable.”

Persons Use Beautiful Poetry Choices Interesting Notes Devices Constructs Grasping Ineffable Literary Devices

Author:Vanna Bonta

“And it's kind of my own fault too, in the sense that I've used my own life as a literary device so much. I think people feel very comfortable reviewing the idea of me, as opposed to what I've actually written. I find that most of the time, when people write about one of my books, they're really just writing about what they think I may or may not represent, as sort of this abstract entity. Is that unfair? Not really. If I put myself in this position where I'm going to kind of weave elements of memoir into almost everything, well, I suppose that's going to happen.”

“I should say that I'm not conscious of any particular style or any particular literary device when I am writing. I have written 22 books, and they are all very different. I have tried all kinds of genres.”

Should Writing Kind Book Different Written Style Particular Conscious All Kinds Genre Devices Literary Devices

Author:Isabel Allende

“Synesthesia has interested me for a long time, both as a literary device and as a puncturing of the membranes that organize how the world comes into someone's head.”

World Long Long Time Devices Organize Membranes Literary Devices

Author:Leni Zumas

“Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.”

Knows Hard Language Growth Definitions Miserable Devices Dictionary Nobody Knows Hash Literary Devices

Author:Ambrose Bierce

“Do you know what religion is, Martin, my friend? -I can barely remember Lord's Prayer. -A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends,myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values , and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society.”

Knows Wells I Can Beautiful Remember Values Order Culture Belief Prayer Moral Lord Type My Friends Myth Code Devices Do You Know Legends Moral Code Literary Devices

Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“The thing to remember when you're writing," he said, " is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don't care what literary device you might use, or belief systems you tap into--if you can make a story true for the reader, if you can give them a glimpse into another way of seeing the world, or another way that they can cope with their problems, then that story is a succes.”

“God is a novelist. He uses all sorts of literary devices: alliteration, assonance, rhyme, synecdoche, onomatopoeia. But of all of these, His favorite is foreshadowing.And that is what God was doing at the Cloisters and with Eudora Welty. He was foreshadowing. He was laying traps, leaving clues, clues I could have seen had I been perceptive enough.”

Enough Use Leaving Novelists Devices Traps Rhyme Clue Foreshadowing Alliteration Literary Devices Assonance

Book:Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life

Source: Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life

“The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything”

Literature Devices Essays Literary Devices

Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948

Source: Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948

“In my experience when critics raise these objections, they invariably violate one of seventeen principles for interpreting the Scriptures....For example, assuming the unexplained is unexplainable....failing to understand the context of the passage....assuming a partial report is a false report...neglecting to interpret difficult passages in light of clear ones; basing a teaching on an obscure passage; forgetting that the Bible uses nontechnical, everyday language; failing to remember the Bible uses different literary devices.”