Best Metaphor Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 30

“I believe people have different ways of approaching the Word. For me, it's metaphor, written by people a long time after Christ died and interpreted by specific groups. I read the gospels that aren't included in the Bible. These make me feel good about calling myself a Christian.”

People Way Feels Believe Long Different Christian I Believe Christ Written Groups Calling Long Time Died Metaphor Feel Good Different Ways

Author:Jane Fonda

“If we don't understand how metaphor works we will misunderstand most of what we read in the Bible. No matter how carefully we parse our Hebrew and Greek sentences, no matter how precisely we use our dictionaries and trace our etymologies, no matter how exactly we define the words on the page, if we do not appreciate the way a metaphor works we will never comprehend the meaning of the text.”

Ifs Way Matter Use Pages Appreciate Metaphor Sentences Greek Dictionary Hebrew Etymology

Author:Eugene H. Peterson

“There is a diverse meaning to the lyrics as well. A lot of the stuff I write is from a personal level but is not really anything that I care about if people get or not so I write alot of the stuff as metaphors based in Viking mythology and Viking History which is sort of my main interest in life and sort of my main atmosphere in life.”

People Ifs Writing Wells Care Stuff Interest Levels Metaphor Mythology Atmosphere Diverse I Care Vikings Interest In Life

Author:Johan Hegg

“I'm not conscious of my own themes as I write first drafts, no, and in fact, I work hard to stay in that unconscious space and not ask myself what the novel is about or what my metaphors might mean because then, I think, you're just dead in the water.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Mean Hard Facts Might Asks Water My Own Space Novel Hard Work Conscious Metaphor Theme Unconscious

Author:Laurie Foos

“I see money as a reflection of how much impact you're having on the world. I see money as a metaphor in a way.”

World Way Reflection Impact Metaphor

Author:Paul Reed Smith

“Plastic metaphors and carbon copy similes that aren't going to do anything for anybody and it doesn't showcase creativity; it showcases the fact that the soul of the music has been compromised to control the industry.”

Has Beens Soul Facts Creativity Industry Metaphor Copies Plastic Carbon Simile Showcase

Author:Immortal Technique

“Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.”

Dangerous Metaphor Unbearable Lightness Unbearable Lightness Of Being Unbearable Lightness

Author:Milan Kundera

“We need metaphors of magic and monsters in order to understand the human condition.”

Needs Humans Order Magic Conditions Metaphor Monsters Human Condition

Author:Stephen R. Donaldson

“To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover something you did not know you knew: an insight into one of your opaque characters, a metaphor that startles you... a truth... that used to elude you.”

Knows Want Writing Character Used Novel Conditions Metaphor Insight What You Want Elude Opaque Elude You

Author:Norman Mailer

“American art in general... takes to surreal exaggerations and metaphors; but its Puritan work ethic has little use for the playful self-indulgence behind Parisian Surrealism.”

Littles Art Self Use Behinds Ethics Metaphor Work Ethic Surreal Indulgence Exaggeration Surrealism Puritan Self Indulgence

Author:John Updike

“...the best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents.”

Ifs Heart Doe Said Seems Speak Mark Aim Metaphor Intellect Flying Prose Crooked Frivolous

Book:Reflective Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology

Source: Reflective Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology

“Only simple ideas can be held by large groups of people. Commonly held ideas are almost always dumbed down until they are practically lies... and often dangerous ones. Once vast numbers of people have come to believe the lie, they adjust their own behavior to bring themselves into sync with it, and thereby change the world itself. The world, then, no longer resembles the one that gave rise to the original insight. Soon, a person's situation is so at odds with the world as it really is that a crisis develops, and he or she must seek a new metaphor for explanation and guidance.”

“Why aren't we looking at the causes of breast cancer? Why aren't we spending our energy on looking at what we're doing to the earth? On the pollutants we're putting into the earth? And the pesticides we're putting into the earth? What we're releasing into the air? Instead, we just cut off more organs! That's where metaphor comes into it - not even metaphor as much as reality.”

Reality Earth Energy Causes Cutting Air Metaphor Cancer Spending Breasts Organs Breast Cancer Pesticides

Author:Eve Ensler

“The film [Sightseers] is really the story of the journey of a relationship, so the killings are almost a metaphor for the trials they go through. We wanted people to identify with the experience of going on holiday and having a quarrel with your wife, boyfriend, whatever. We knew if we didn't crack that it would not be watchable as a film.”

People Ifs Stories Wanted Film Wife Journey Killing Metaphor Trials Holiday Cracks Quarrels Going On Holiday

Author:Alice Lowe

“I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don't want to get somewhere, you just don't want to fall off your board.”

Want Giving Writing Fall Fiction Novel Car Metaphor Boards Surfing Surf Navigate Writing Short

Author:Etgar Keret

“Whereas if you were writing an op-ed piece or an essay, somebody would be asking, "What's your point?" With poetry you can stay in a moment for as long as you want. Poetry is about metaphor, about a thing standing in for something else. It's the thing that opens out to something else. What that something else is changes for readers. So what's on the page - it falls away.”

Ifs Want Writing Long Moments Would Be Fall Pieces Reader Pages Standing Asking Metaphor Poetry Is Essays

Author:Claudia Rankine

“The practice of employing metaphor and image and composition and linguistic choices to move the reader through the content.”

Moving Choices Practice Reader Metaphor Composition Employing

Author:Lidia Yuknavitch

“Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We've done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it's much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it's not only easier to use but more efficient.”

Knows Kind Done Use Study Cutting Easier Tests Function Metaphor All Kinds Faster Efficient Mice Pointing

Author:Steve Jobs

“The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That's a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.”

World May Long Two Bigs Metaphor Stores Manage Devices Going Away Big Things Stand Alone Storage Predicting The Future Desktop

Author:Steve Jobs

“For my generation - the "Children of Nixon," as I call us in the book - the Lebanese civil war was an iconic event. Downtown Beirut became a metaphor for so many things: man's inhumanity to man, what Charles Bukowski called "the impossibility of being human." It shaped our perceptions of war and human nature, just as Vietnam did for our parents. We used it to understand how the world works.”

“Many of my short fictions use theatre as a metaphor for situations in which characters find themselves estranged from the larger, uncontrollable world that may or may not lie beyond the proscenium arch.”

World May Character Use Lying Fiction Situation Metaphor Theatre Arches Uncontrollable

Author:Norman Lock

“I've learned a lot about language from reading slush. You can immediately tell if a writer is in control of the narrative. This writer will avoid using too many words like "possibly," "probably," "maybe," "perhaps," etc. He/she will avoid using clichés, as well as a lot of metaphors, and won't take four sentences to say what they could in one (or write a great sentence and follow it up with a bunch of stuff that just weakens it).”

Ifs Writing Wells Reading Language Stuff Four Metaphor Sentences Bunch Narrative I've Learned Etc Slush

Author:Mary J. Miller

“When you're looking around for metaphor or simile, I do think it's often helpful to keep inside the world of the book, to gather your comparisons from the stuff particular to that world - be they king salmon and aviation fuel, or pot roasts and spatulas.”

Thinking World Book Stuff Particular Kings Metaphor Fuel Aviation Comparison Helpful Pot Simile Salmon Spatulas

Author:Leigh Newman

“One of the metaphors of the book is the carpet. Not just the flying carpet, but the carpet as a woven surface in which many repetitions and motifs recur and mirror one another. This is very much reflected within the stories: they have borders within borders, repeated motifs which change. They have their feet in oral conventions, and for the mnemonics, the storyteller needs to have a structure in order to remember the stories.”

Needs Book Stories Remember Order Feet Mirrors Structure Metaphor Surface Flying Borders Conventions Repetition Storyteller Carpet Woven Motifs

Author:Marina Warner

“But the poetry side is what appeals more to me today. Metaphor, just absurd linkages and coming up with categories, labeling, taxonomy, and I'd say that I do have some tools left. There are days I can't make a sentence out of anything, and anything I make looks clunky to me. But I still have a general grasp of the cliché, of the generic sentence. And if I didn't have that, I'd be a blob of putty on the floor.”

Ifs Looks Stills I Can Today Left Sides Tools Metaphor Sentences Absurd Appeals Categories Generic Labeling Linkages Taxonomy

Author:Richard Meltzer

“Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, "The Bear." That poem impressed me so much that I memorized it. I used it for years when I taught in prisons. It's a powerful extended metaphor for what the writing life is really all about. It's a uniquely powerful poem about self-transformation, and that's what we're asking, really, beyond even our objection to the war. We're asking people to look at themselves and think about what might be possible with a little self-transformation.”

“One of the things I love about translation is it obliterates the self. When I'm trying to figure out what Tu Fu has to say, I have to kind of impersonate Tu Fu. I have to take on, if you will, his voice and his skin in English, and I have to try to get as deeply into the poem as possible. I'm not trying to make an equivalent poem in English, which can't be done because our language can't accommodate the kind of metaphors within metaphors the Chinese written language can, and often does, contain.”

Ifs Trying Kind Doe Self Done Language Voice Written Figures Skins Metaphor Chinese Translations Accommodate Things I Love Written Language Impersonate

Author:Sam Hamill

“Maybe we need more dialogue in terms of our faith, in terms of those who are believers, or even nonbelievers, about that aspect, and what that might mean if you were interpreting. You don't have to believe it; maybe you could draw a metaphor from it.”

Ifs Needs Believe Mean Might Term Draws Aspect Metaphor Believer Dialogue Interpreting

Author:Joseph Fiennes

“I'm a little more mature, and a little more aware of the things that I might say. But um, it aint going nowhere because everyone still loves sex, but it's how you present it like I have this one track of Choice," which is a metaphor.”

Littles Stills Might Choices Sex Metaphor Track Mature

Author:Ginuwine

“In essence, we string theorists have been trying to work out the score of the universe, the harmonies of the universe, the mathematical vibrations that the strings would play. So musical metaphors have been with us in science since the beginning.”

Trying Has Beens Play Universe Essence Harmony Musical Metaphor Work Out Mathematical Score Strings Vibrations Theorists

Author:Brian Greene

“The beauty of string theory is the metaphor kind of really comes very close to the reality. The strings of string theory are vibrating the particles, vibrating the forces of nature into existence, those vibrations are sort of like musical notes. So string theory, if it's correct, would be playing out the score of the universe.”

Ifs Kind Reality Would Be Universe Force Existence Theory Notes Musical Metaphor Score Strings Particles Vibrations Forces Of Nature String Theory Musical Notes

Author:Brian Greene

“I argue against literal interpretation of religious doctrines. Religions make progress when they emancipate themselves from literalism, and take their doctrinal statements to be metaphors or allegories.”

Religious Progress Metaphor Arguing Statements Doctrine Interpretation Literal Allegory

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I was particularly drawn to Berlin because of its literal, concrete division. Two halves making a whole, or two entities that were altered doubles of each other? Twins that had been separated and kept in neighbouring houses and raised according to different sets of rules as a social experiment? It was irresistible as a metaphor for division in the mind, for a split personality.”

Mind Two Different Whole House Social Half Personality Raised Metaphor Experiments Division Concrete Splits Twins Entity Irresistible Berlin Literal Altered Split Personality

Author:Nicholas Royle

“What better metaphor for the subliminal state than capitalism? This whole notion that you're trying to do good and make things good for the world, but at the same time the reality is that you have to eat other people to end up on top.”

People World Trying Ends States Whole Reality Capitalism Notion Metaphor Subliminal

Author:Owen Pallett

“Audio virology is not a metaphor. It is to be taken literally. It maps real processes of mutation, transmission, contagion and memory within music culture.”

Real Culture Process Memories Taken Metaphor Maps Transmission Mutation Contagion Audio Music Culture

Author:Kode9

“I'm super happy to see the record doing its thing and for people to like it, but for me, I had a great victory just as a person. I overstepped countless obstacles by creating that record. And the record's a metaphor for the personal steps I [took] throughout the past year.”

People Years Persons Past Steps Records Victory Creating Metaphor Obstacles Great Victory Super Happy

Author:Justin Vernon

“I really loved it because it really informed his way of seeing my character and the story. If you look closely he always had this metaphor of an egg, of a little chick pecking her way out of a shell, and in one scene in the kitchen there are all these white plates on a wall and then in the middle there is a yellow plate so even that looks like an egg. And a lot of the furniture was almost sculpted in that way as well. It was really cool to see that.”

Ifs Way Wells Looks Littles Character Stories White Seeing Middle Wall Scene Metaphor Kitchen Eggs Yellow Plates Shells Furniture Really Cool Chicks

Author:Mia Wasikowska

“Now, that can be a traditional form or it can be something you're inventing. It can be the development of a metaphor, the working through of a metaphor.”

Form Development Metaphor Traditional Inventing

Author:Edward Hirsch

“Fiction writers learn about the development of metaphor, the use of rhythm, the way that language is compacted in order to express the feelings of - express their own feelings and the feelings of their characters.”

Way Character Use Feelings Order Language Fiction Development Metaphor Rhythm Fiction Writers

Author:Edward Hirsch

“It hit me that an Apache resistance would be a wonderful, you know, it would be a wonderful metaphor for Jewish-American soldiers to be using behind enemy lines against the Nazis because the Apache Indians... were able to fight off for decades both the Spaniards and the Mexicans and the U.S. Cavalry for years because of their - they were great guerrilla fighters. They were great resistance fighters. And one of their ways of winning battles was psychological battles.”

“I mean, of course "King Kong" is a metaphor for the slave trade. I'm not saying the makers of "King Kong" meant it to be that way, but that's what, that's the movie that they made - whether they meant to make it or not.”

Way Mean Made Courses Kings Trade Slave Metaphor Makers Slave Trade King Kong

Author:Quentin Tarantino

“To me "King Kong" is a metaphor for America's fear of the black male. And to me that's obvious. All right? So I mean that was one of the first things I said when I was talking to a friend of mine after he saw Peter Jackson's version of "King Kong."”

Firsts Mean Said America Black Talking Saws Mines Kings Males Metaphor Obvious Versions Peter Black Males King Kong

Author:Quentin Tarantino

“Tango is serious and takes discipline. It must be studied hard to be done well. It is elegant, formal, passionate and intimate. It is about power and vulnerability. It is both dance and metaphor. And to its captives becomes a magnificent obsession”

Wells Hard Done Serious Discipline Dance Metaphor Passionate Obsession Intimate Vulnerability Magnificent Formal Elegant Captives Tango

Author:Janny Scott

“A myth... is a metaphor for a mystery beyond human comprehension. It is a comparison that helps us understand, by analogy, some aspect of our mysterious selves. A myth, in this way of thinking, is not an untruth but a way of reaching a profound truth.”

Thinking Way Humans Self Helping Mystery Aspect Profound Metaphor Myth Mysterious Reaching Comparison Way Of Thinking Comprehension Analogies Untruth Profound Truth

Author:Christopher Vogler

“Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it's said, as you read a book. But the metaphor can be inverted. The journeys we make during the reading of a book trace out, in some way, the private spaces we inhabit. There are texts that will always be our dead-end streets; fragments that will be bridges; words that will be like the scaffolding that protects fragile constructions.”

Book Reading Language Journey Protect Chaos Metaphor Construction Scaffolding

Author:Valeria Luiselli

“The fundamentals of hip-hop still play an important role, cause it's about those similes, those metaphors, those parallels. And to some people it's just about, "Man, I'm really relating to the lifestyle."”

People Men Stills Important Play Causes Roles Fundamentals Metaphor Hip Hop Lifestyle Hips Hops Parallels Simile

Author:Pusha T

““Money to Burn” is a fantasy. I mean, I would love for that to be a true story. Most of my songs are written in metaphors.”

Mean Stories Song Fantasy Written Metaphor True Story

Author:Ladyhawke

“"The River" [song] is also, yes, very metaphorical. Rivers are cleansing. As long as human beings have been on the Earth we've used rivers to cleanse ourselves. And, for me, the lyrics "something in the river," I think is - well, the river is a metaphor for where I was at the time.”

Thinking Humans Wells Long Has Beens Earth Used Song Human Beings Rivers Metaphor Cleansing Metaphorical

Author:Ladyhawke

“Of course we as Labour Party members must all be free to criticise and oppose injustice and abuse wherever we find it. But as today's Report recommends, can we please leave Hitler and Nazi metaphors alone (especially in the context of Israel). Why? Because the Shoah is still in people's family experience.”

People Stills Today Courses Party Please Members Abuse Injustice Metaphor Israel Reports Labour Nazi Labour Party Criticise

Author:Jeremy Corbyn

“Journeys become very good metaphors. They always have the character put into circumstances that reveal him. If I had based my characters in New York and had them just sitting and thinking about life, it would be like what contemporary U.S. fiction is about. That is very heavy, literally, for me. It doesn't become mainstream enough because the pages don't turn themselves.”

Ifs Thinking Enough Character Would Be Turns Fiction Journey New York Circumstances Pages Sitting Very Good Metaphor Heavy Contemporary Mainstream Thinking About Life

Author:Karan Bajaj

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Metaphor Quotes