“I was tied down in that chair for 10 minutes and experienced what it was like to be completely powerless while someone else has complete dominance. It's sadistic, even though I find Richard to be a really lovely human being. That's what the whole film "Tickled" is about. It's not a film about tickling, but I think tickling offers a really good visual metaphor for the much bigger ideas that we were trying to get at about power and control - by people who have a lot of money - over people without money and who have no power in the relationship.” PeopleThinkingTryingHumansIdeasWholeFilmHuman BeingsMinutesOffersBiggerMetaphorLovelyVisualsChairsTiedLots Of MoneyPowerlessDominanceSadisticPower And ControlTickling Author:David Farrier
“This is a nice metaphor, too, about mothers and daughters - that when it came time for me to make my own, I was making a completely different garden than the one that my mom has. They don't look like they came from relatives. Hers is a very productive and pragmatic vegetable garden, and mine is a ridiculous overabundance of useless plants. It doesn't feed anybody, it doesn't serve any purpose.” LooksDifferentMotherPurposeMy OwnNiceMinesMomDaughterGardenPlantMetaphorMy MomRidiculousUselessProductiveVegetablesPragmaticMother And DaughterVegetable GardenOverabundance Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“The story [in 12 Years a Slave] serves as a metaphor for the fear of having your family taken away, and for being abused in such a horrific way. I lost it a lot of times watching that film, particularly when seeing the grace of the man when he finally makes it back home aged, changed, forever brutalized, and yet he apologizes to his family for his long absence. That was such a profoundly moving moment capturing the triumph of dignity over the disgraceful behavior of those involved in the slave trade.” MenWayYearsLongMomentsStoriesHomeFilmMovingLostForeverTakenGraceSeeingChangedHe ManInvolvedBehaviorDignityTradeSlaveMetaphorAbsenceTriumphOur FamilyApologizingBack HomeHorrificDisgracefulSlave Trade Author:Benedict Cumberbatch
“Life is unfair and improv is a great metaphor of that.” Life IsMetaphorUnfairLife Is Unfair Author:Mike Birbiglia
“I've been writing for decades that balance is an inapt metaphor as it necessarily entails tradeoffs.” WritingBalanceMetaphorDecades Author:Stewart D. Friedman
“Instead of the metaphor of scales in balance, I prefer the idea of a jazz quartet: you're trying to make music that feels and sounds good, and sometimes you only hear the trumpet or just the bass and piano. Sometimes all four are playing at the same time, but perhaps at different volume.” FeelsTryingIdeasDifferentSometimesSoundFourBalanceJazzMetaphorScalesPianoVolumeBassTrumpetsQuartets Author:Stewart D. Friedman
“I also find the desert a wonderful metaphor for desolation and yet the exact counterpart of the ocean with its hidden depths. Both are vast, harsh, implacable, homogenous to the untrained eye, and beautiful. Bothallow the wind to roam on the surface. And both serve as wonderful vehicles for human survival stories.” HumansStoriesEyeBeautifulWonderfulWindOceanSurvivalDepthMetaphorSurfaceDesertVehicleHarshDesolationCounterparts Author:Vera Nazarian
“What we need in fantasy is the sudden balm of clarity - a temporary reprieve from life's white noise and clamor of pain, a kind of time-out. Such clarity, a new perspective, is made possible by fantastic metaphor.” NeedsKindMadePainWhiteFantasyPerspectiveMetaphorNoiseClarityFantasticTemporaryClamorNew PerspectiveReprieveWhite Noise Author:Vera Nazarian
“Clad in metaphor, the world becomes newborn to our senses, like a phoenix. It is the most effective fresh presentation of the elements of our life for our jaded, numbed, even ailing sense of imagination.” WorldImaginationOur LivesElementsMetaphorSensesPresentationPhoenixNewbornJaded Author:Vera Nazarian
“Using painting as a metaphor for consciousness is what I'm interested in.” ConsciousnessPaintingMetaphor Author:Nigel Cooke
“Fitzcarraldo is a mad dreamer. He's willing to sacrifice everything in order to make his vision of an opera house. That metaphor of pulling the boat over the mountain is so integral to anyone making any creative effort. It's that universal Sisyphean struggle.” OrderHouseEffortVisionStruggleCreativeSacrificeWillingMountainUniversalMadMetaphorBoatDreamerOperaPullingOpera House Author:Sam Pressman
“It's a metaphor for what we're being told: "Just stay in the box, kid, don't muddy the water." Parents say it to their kids. Teachers say it. Schools do. And so people become immune to the sameness.” PeopleKidsSchoolParentWaterTeacherMetaphorBoxesImmuneMuddySameness Author:Frank Gehry
“The engine room really is a metaphor for my head, and all the things bangin' around, and I think I share that with a lot of people. A lot of memories, and a lot of hopes, and a lot of just dealing with the day-to-day. Sometimes it gets all abstract.” PeopleThinkingSometimesMemoriesRoomsShareMetaphorAbstractEnginesDay To Day Author:Mike Watt
“There isn't a river or creek in the country - or there are very few - that doesn't have some small group of people working on a restoration or creek cleanup project. Let me give you one example that's a great metaphor: In Washington, D.C., there is a group called the Anacostia Watershed Society. Two rivers converge and define Washington - one which everybody knows about, the Potomac, and the Anacostia, which they don't. The Anacostia is one of the most polluted urban rivers in the country.” PeopleKnowsGivingTwoCountryGroupsExampleProjectsRiversLet MeMetaphorUrbanRestorationSmall GroupsCreeksWatersheds Author:Robert Hass
“It turns out - this is a metaphor out of [Charles] Dickens - that the raw sewage emptied into the Anacostia comes from the Federal Triangle. I have a sewer map, and on it you can see the pipe from which congressional wastes empty into the river that then flows through the black neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. It is very expensive to do anything about the river, but somebody's working on it.” TurnsBlackWasteFlowRiversEmptyMetaphorExpensiveNeighborhoodMapsPipeDickensTrianglesSewersSewage Author:Robert Hass
“When you talk about "infertility" you're already using a land-based metaphor - a woman's body compared to property, to be considered fruitful or barren. And "estate" encompasses both legacy and landscape. Think of Emerson, referring to his son's death as "the loss of a beautiful estate."” ThinkingBodyBeautifulLossLandSonPropertyMetaphorLandscapeLegacyEstatesBarrenReferringWomen's BodiesInfertility Author:Monica Youn
“I think that the superhero-as-metaphor involves a superhero being some sort of intellectual, emotional, or other such concept writ large. But I don't know that it's a necessary part of the appeal that the superhero be superior.” ThinkingKnowsEmotionalIntellectualConceptsMetaphorSuperiorsAppealsSuperhero Author:Kurt Busiek
“I'm not building each one character around one metaphor, so much as trying to build a heroic archetype that can be used to express the kind of metaphors that I find in each story.” TryingKindCharacterStoriesUsedBuildingMetaphorHeroicArchetype Author:Kurt Busiek
“The characters are, by their nature, archetypes that can serve different metaphors.” DifferentCharacterMetaphorArchetype Author:Kurt Busiek
“If there's ever a character who can only serve one metaphor, I'll probably tell one story with that character and be done with it.” IfsDoneCharacterStoriesMetaphor Author:Kurt Busiek
“Now jamming - which is about collaborative improvisation - has to do with getting people together to be creative musically. But it is a very powerful metaphor for understanding the grammar of the creative process. It applies to business and to other pursuits as well.” PeopleWellsTogetherProcessUnderstandingPowerfulCreativeMetaphorPursuitCreative ProcessBe CreativeGrammarVery PowerfulImprovisation Author:John Kao
“If you're black living in the community and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.” IfsWantMeanUseHappensBlackCommunityMetaphor Author:Cheo Hodari Coker
“It's appropriate to have magic in a love story, because magic is a sort of metaphor for what love feels like? When we fall in love, the world feels magical to us. It becomes an enchanted place.” WorldFeelsStoriesFallMagicFalling In LoveMetaphorLove StoryAppropriateEnchantedEnchanted Places Author:Theodora Goss
“The idea of Judaism as a flower, it a message for Jewish people, talking about the future. Many people associate Judaism with old and dry laws, and the Holocaust. But with this metaphor, Judaism for me is useful, pleasant, and fills me with good feelings.” PeopleIdeasFeelingsLawTalkingFlowerMessagesMetaphorPleasantDryHolocaustAssociatesJudaismGood FeelingPeople Talking Author:Csanad Szegedi
“The Greek language seems different than other languages. I'm not the only person to think this. Usually, I come up with some kind of dopey metaphor for why it's different. But it seems, somehow, more original, more like being in the morning of language.” ThinkingKindPersonsDifferentSeemsLanguageMorningOriginalsMetaphorCome UpGreek Author:Anne Carson
“I really think kids should understand that music is like learning the alphabet. You put small letters together to make words, and then you use these words to create a story, but with music. And they really need to know how to mix and match those letters and how to come up with something that is really interesting, or speak in metaphors as poets do to show us something maybe we didn't think about.” ThinkingKnowsNeedsShouldStoriesUseShowsKidsTogetherSpeakInterestingKnow HowPoetMusic IsLettersMetaphorCome UpReally InterestingAlphabet Author:Terry Bozzio
“Mortal City was really influenced by geography. [The song] "The Ocean" is the Pacific Northwest. Southern California and New York also figure into songs, and Iowa. "February" is very much about New England. "Mortal City" is Philadelphia. The whole album is this anthropomorphized landscape where the metaphors live in this geography.” WholeSongCitiesFiguresNew YorkOceanEnglandMetaphorAlbumsMortalsLandscapeCaliforniaSouthernGeographyPacificPhiladelphiaFebruaryNew EnglandIowaSouthern CaliforniaPacific Northwest Author:Dar Williams
“I always thought that's the exact metaphor, the perfect metaphor for acting. To go blind, to ignore the danger, and to totally trust.” PerfectActingDangerBlindMetaphor Author:Isabelle Huppert
“I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.” ThinkingKindCharacterTroubleHappeningsMetaphor Author:Alice Mattison
“Technically I've improved - I might turn a metaphor in five words now, where years ago, it would have taken me a paragraph. I can't say it was intentional - but you know what they say about practice making perfect...!” KnowsYearsI CanMightTurnsPerfectPracticeTakenFiveYears AgoMetaphorParagraph Book:House Rules: A Novel Source: House Rules: A Novel
“Seeing sound, the high order stuff that's not audible still affects how everything else behaves. There might be a visual metaphor for that somewhere.” StillsMightOrderStuffSoundSeeingMetaphorBehaveVisuals Author:Jerry Garcia
“The visual does seem to me the most thoroughly grasped and recorded among my impressions; sight seems to be my principal sense organ, and "seeing" supplies the key metaphors for reporting the perception.” DoeSeemsSeeingKeysPerceptionSightMetaphorImpressionVisualsOrgansPrincipalSupplies Author:Zygmunt Bauman
“When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range of colors, but you find instances in a lot of black literature in which the blackness is used as a metaphor.” PeopleUsedLiteratureUnderstandingBlackColorMetaphorWideInstanceRangeDevicesBlack PeopleBlacknessRhetorical Author:Kerry James Marshall
“I was really interested in this ability for others to create virtual memories for us. In "The Cartographers" I explore this through Adam Woods, and the company he works for, which produces virtual memories that people can beam into their consciousness. While the technology is sci-fi, the story is also a metaphor for the way love relationships create memories in our minds.” PeopleWayMindStoriesMemoriesAbilityConsciousnessCompanyTechnologyProduceMetaphorWoodsSci FiAdamBeamLove Relationship Author:Alexander Weinstein
“Basketball really is a metaphor for life - the intangible skills I have learned on the court, have helped shape the person I am today.” PersonsTodayShapesSkillsBasketballCourtMetaphorI Have LearnedIntangible Author:Ashley Graham
“When we were kids, you picked up a little paper and put it on a stick; and when you waved it back and forth, you understood the power of air underneath the wings. In that way, a child begins to understand abstraction, poetry, metaphor, symbolism. You play with the materials you have and use your imagination to make them into something else. That what's so sad about having everything on a little screen - it's not physical and dimensional, and that seems backward.” WayChildrenLittlesPlayUseSeemsKidsImaginationAirMaterialsPaperUnderstoodWingsSticksMetaphorScreensAbstractionBack And ForthSymbolismSo Sad Author:Julie Taymor
“My metaphor is that evil always has a top hat and a cape, and goodness is over there in the corner. For me it's just too easy, if you hate your country or your wife, so you kill them. You can't think through that, you can't feel through that, you can't do the work. And now we have guns. Solution? I don't think so.” IfsThinkingFeelsCountryHateEvilEasyWifeGoodnessSolutionsGunMetaphorCornersHatsHate YouCapesTop Hats Author:Toni Morrison
“With a horror movie, you're making a metaphor. You're making a personalized nightmare for the protagonist.” HorrorMetaphorNightmareProtagonistsPersonalized Author:Jordan Peele
“A good school is a relative concept, and the better schools are located in more expensive neighborhoods. But when everyone bids more for a house in a better school district, they succeed only in bidding up the prices of those houses. As before, 50 percent of all children will attend schools in the bottom half of the school quality distribution. As in the familiar stadium metaphor, all stand, hoping to get a better view, only to discover that no one sees better than if all had remained seated.” IfsChildrenSchoolHouseViewsHalfQualitySucceedPercentConceptsBottomMetaphorFamiliarExpensiveNeighborhoodRelativeDistributionStadiumsBiddingGood SchoolSchool Districts Author:Robert H. Frank
“God's will is clear about many things. We're to be holy. I like the metaphor that his Word is a lamp to our feet. A lamp may help guide my next one or two steps, but it's not a crystal ball into the future.” MayTwoHelpingNextStepsClearFeetHolyBallsMetaphorGuidesGods WillLampsCrystalsCrystal Ball Author:Craig Groeschel
“The game of chess is a metaphor for life... it teaches you strategy and it teaches you the value of knowing where you are, where you want to get to and what obstacles are in the way that you need to navigate in order to get there.” WayWantNeedsValuesOrderGamesTeachKnowingStrategyMetaphorObstaclesChessWhere You AreNavigate Author:Lupita Nyong'o
“I believe a good memoir should have all of the narrative elements of a novel: character development, dialogue, descriptive language, and metaphor.” ShouldBelieveCharacterLanguageI BelieveNovelDevelopmentElementsShould HaveMetaphorMemoirDialogueNarrativeCharacter Development Author:Danielle Trussoni
“I think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.” ThinkingPersonsPlayProblemFormNovelIssuesMetaphorAbstractI've LearnedResolvePassagesAbstractionEditsPassage Of TimeCharacterization Author:Frederick Wiseman
“The American Heritage Dictionary defines crucible as "a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces; a severe test of patience or belief; a vessel for melting material at high temperatures." A crucible was the vessel in which medieval alchemists attempted to turn base metals into gold. That the alchemists inevitably failed in their audacious attempts doesn't denigrate the power of the crucible as a metaphor for the circumstances that cause an individual to be utterly transformed.” PoliticalTurnsIndividualBeliefForceSocialCausesPowerfulSituationEconomicMaterialsCircumstancesIntellectualGoldTestsMetaphorHeritageMetalsTransformedSevereVesselDictionaryTemperatureMedievalMeltingAlchemistCrucibleAudaciousConfluence Author:Warren G. Bennis
“Neotony is a metaphor for the quality of life - the gift - that keeps the fortunate of whatever age focused on all the marvelous undiscovered things to come.” AgeQualityMetaphorFocusedFortunateMarvelousQuality Of Life Author:Warren G. Bennis
“It's a beautiful aspect of narrative construction, hunting for the right images and metaphors to render our character's hearts/minds/souls as though they're ecosystems, full-fledged settings for a reader to inhabit like a place.” MindHeartSoulCharacterBeautifulReaderAspectMetaphorSettingSettingsNarrativeConstructionHuntingEcosystems Author:Joshua Mohr
“Boxing remains an important living metaphor of the struggle for equality.” ImportantStruggleRemainsMetaphorBoxing Author:George Elliott Clarke
“I still think that there's some kind of psychological investment in black athletes carrying the flag for "us" at times. So, sports [remains a] metaphor for struggle and triumph and flair.” ThinkingKindStillsSportsBlackStruggleRemainsInvestmentMetaphorAthletePsychologicalTriumphFlagsFlair Author:George Elliott Clarke