Quotessence
Home / Topics / Metaphor Quotes

Metaphor Quotes

Browse 2099 quotes about Metaphor.

Related topics

ThinkingWayPeopleIfsWorldWritingKnowsUseStoriesKindLanguageTryingMindArtIdeasHumansBookWellsMeanRealDifferentFirstsSometimesTermUsedLooksMayNeedsShouldWantGivingBelieveBodyHas BeensMenSimileLiteratureStillsDoeMemoriesPerfectPoetTwoFeelsMomentsRealitySongCharacterFactsI CanLittlesLongMadeMatterSaidSymbolsDreamImaginationNovelOrderSeemsSelfWholeConsciousnessCultureLife IsProblemReaderSportsWarChildrenEndsFictionFilmFormMovingTogetherTurnsUnderstandingAspectEnoughHappensPersonsPossibilitySoundSpeakSpeechTalkingAgeEarthExpressionEyeFallInterestingMetaphoricalMightProcessStatesYearsBeautifulmore

Metaphor Quotes

“The Surly Caller by Stewart Stafford Pain - stalker at my door; Resigned admission inside, Drags a chair, fills teary ducts, Drapes tingling spider's webs. Grey vista of a dreaded visit, Common or garden victim by force, Pain is the barb to candied joy; Twin-horned teasing tormentor. In rapid eye movement, we dream, It sleepwalks in my creaking room, I hear stumbling footsteps stir, Claws retract in numbing slumber. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

PainSufferingDreamsMetaphorSurrealismStalkerPersonificationEmily DickinsonStalkersSadomasochism
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“Good Morning Sinkhole by Stewart Stafford Lucky birdshit on my window, A split-second awakening, Another landslide out of bed, Flailing in duvet quicksand. Clawing at the walls going down, Assume precarious crab-walk position, Straining every fibre to avoid collapsing, Land ho! with a fingertip mattress grab. Steadying myself, I drag my carcass up, Shaky leg muscles gain some relief, Retake Altar of Id with a drowning sweat, Survive to face more nightmare carpet rides. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

SleepBedMetaphorSlice Of LifeWaking UpModern PoetrySinkholesRude AwakeningFunny PoetryLandslide
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“I realized, when I saw the forest burning, how fascinating the firelight is. It's beautiful, and people stare at it, don't they? It destroys things and kills people, but humans love it. Is it because they crave their own destruction, Sam? I want to understand your kind. I am going out into the wider world, and I must learn. But first things first. First, to escape this shell, this egg in which I have gestated, all eyes will be on the fire, all eyes blinded by the smoke, and when I walk out of here, out into your large world with its billions, no one will even see. It's the beauty of light, don't you see, Sam? It reveals, but it also distracts and blinds. It's even better than darkness.”

InspirationalRealityLightHumanityDarknessFirePerceptionMetaphorHuman ConditionAnalogy
Book:Light
Create image

“Burning is the right way to paint it. You feel yourself getting so hot, day after day. Hotter and hotter. It gets to be too much. Even for stars. At some point they fizzle out or explode. Cease to be. But if you're looking up at the sky, you don't see it that way. You think those stars are still there. Some aren't. Some are already gone. Long gone. I guess, now, so am I.”

LightDarkEmotionDepressionSuicideMetaphorFeelingDear Evan Hansen
Book:Dear Evan Hansen
Create image

“If a car can represent something, this one represents contradiction. For most of his life, my dad has been able to have any woman he wants. In response, he’s gone through as many as possible, betraying each for someone younger and more absurd. Conversely, for most of his life he’s been able to have any car he wants, too. In response, he’s remained married to this, a 1982 Porsche with a tricky clutch.”

MarriageCommitmentMetaphorCars
Book:Domestic Violets
Create image

“You know exactly what I’m offering you. All of you. I’m offering the impossible. I’m giving you both of the options you deliberated over for so long. I’m offering to save this world…” I pressed my teeth together, flicking my eyes to the three figures now huddled in the corner of the room, cowering away from our tense discussion. “And I’m offering to share in the benefits,” I finally hedged. “A six-way share. A six-way partnership.” “You can’t cram six people into a two-person carriage”

MarriageMetaphorPartnershipLol6Harem2Cram
Book:A Dream of Embers
Create image

“Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.”

WritingIdeasEndsCharacterFormOrderFightingBlackWaterImaginationMemoriesFireBattleShapesPaperLaborLogicSightArmyMetaphorSpreadRageMarchFlagsMagnificentInkLegendaryPowderWagonsArtilleryCavalry
Author:Honore de Balzac
Create image

“I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow.”

WritingReasonBitsReaderShotsMetaphorCleverStealingTargetTransitionThievesTerrifiedAccusedArrowsPlagiarismRobberySyntaxSeamlessAluminumBeing AccusedCrossbows
Author:Joseph Epstein
Create image

“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.”

BookBigsTechnologyWonderfulColorComputerTrainMetaphorDrawingDataCodeDevicesObscureSimileArrowsIllustrationCargoDiskLiterary Devices
Book:Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Create image

“The swelling and towering omnibuses, the huge trucks and wagons and carriages, the impetuous hansoms and the more sobered four-wheelers, the pony-carts, donkey-carts, hand-carts, and bicycles which fearlessly find their way amidst the turmoil, with foot-passengers winding in and out, and covering the sidewalks with their multitude, give the effect of a single monstrous organism, which writhes swiftly along the channel where it had run in the figure of a flood till you were tired of that metaphor. You are now a molecule of that vast organism.”

WayGivingHandsRunningScienceFourFeetEffectsFiguresHugeTiredMetaphorFloodMultitudesOrganismsTruckBicycleCoveringMonstrousPassengersTurmoilMoleculesSidewalkCartsCarriagesWagonsDonkeyPoniesSwellingImpetuousFour Wheelers
Author:William Dean Howells
Create image

“Often people talk about how they feel 'stuck' in a situation. You're never stuck! You may be a little frustrated, you may not have clear answers, but you're not stuck. The minute you represent the situation to yourself as being stuck, though, that's exactly how you'll feel. We must be very careful about the metaphors we allow ourselves to use.”

PeopleFeelsMayLittlesUseMotivationalAnswersSituationClearMinutesMetaphorCarefulStuckFrustrated
Book:Awaken The Giant Within
Create image