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Metaphorical Quotes

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Metaphorical Quotes

“Art is a lie that reveals deep truths. Metaphor is one way to translate experience; symbols help us stretch our minds to finger elusive and illustrative truths. Truths are not always logical and human truth finding does not fit snugly onto the silicon chip of a computer. The rational as well as the irrational unites us as specie. We share expressible knowledge and suspect within ourselves and other people the unspeakable. The unfathomable is as much a part of our celestial humanity as is the dirt clutching our shoes, which accumulated grime grounds us to physical reality.”

TruthMetaphorSymbolsTruth QuotesTruth Of LifeSymbolicSymbolismMetaphoricalMetaphorically Speaking
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Ich habe viel Zeit in den Kellergewölben verbracht, nicht aus Überdruß an der Sonne oder plein air, ich verlor nur die Kontrolle über die Stunden und über das Leben, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf; ich verzichtete auf jene starren Definitionen des täglichen Lebens, die es erlauben, der natürlichen Wärme zu folgen oder einfach von der Sonne und den Elementen abzuhängen; ich lag oder ich stand aufrecht, oder ich lehnte nur an einer Wand in diesen feuchten Zimmern, den Schlafsälen meiner Ware, die emsig hin und her ging, die Blicke nach oben, zu den Gittern gerichtet. Zwischen Spaten, Trophäen und Splittern im Marmorabfall stehen die tönernen Gäste, die Schlingen knüpfen aus Schlaf, als wären es Mechelner Spitzen, sie segeln über die Wände, springen wir Kautschuk auf die Stufen aus Staub, steigen nach oben, zum Licht, sie steigen umsonst, gelangen zu nichts, nicht einmal zur Seligkeit oder zur Erschöpfung der Verzweiflung. Und wie in den Märchen kehrte ich nach oben zurück, schwer an Jahren.”

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Book:The Water Statues
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“Thou Shalt Kill by Stewart Stafford Today, an official declaration: "The past's forbidden soil is virgin; The present, a thunderous chariot, To glory's gold destiny awaiting us. Go forth and offer up sacrifices!" But the blood we spilt was red, Whichever body it spurted from. Pleas for help, fused into one. Witnesses to death grew jaded. We made the living into the dead, Forged museums of crowded streets, In executioners' hoods at limp dawn. Arising afresh to our deliverance. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”

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Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Great writers and my mom never used food as an object. Instead it was a medium, a catalyst to mend hearts, to break down barriers, to build relationships. Mom's cooking fed body and soul. She used to quip, "If the food is good, there's no need to talk about the weather." That was my mantra for years---food as meal and conversation, a total experience. I leaned my forehead against the glass and thought again about Emma and the arrowroot. Mom had highlighted it in my sophomore English class. "Jane Fairfax knew it was given with a selfish heart. Emma didn't care about Jane, she just wanted to appear benevolent." "That girl was stupid. She was poor and should've accepted the gift." The football team had hooted for their spokesman. "That girl's name was Jane Fairfax, and motivation always matters." Mom's glare seared them. I tried to remember the rest of the lesson, but couldn't. I think she assigned a paper, and the football team stopped chuckling. Another memory flashed before my eyes. It was from that same spring; Mom was baking a cake to take to a neighbor who'd had a knee replacement. "We don't have enough chocolate." I shut the cabinet door. "We're making an orange cake, not chocolate." "Chocolate is so much better." "Then we're lucky it's not for you. Mrs. Conner is sad and she hurts and it's spring. The orange cake will not only show we care, it'll bring sunshine and spring to her dinner tonight. She needs that." "It's just a cake." "It's never just a cake, Lizzy." I remembered the end of that lesson: I rolled my eyes----Mom loathed that----and received dish duty. But it turned out okay; the batter was excellent. I shoved the movie reel of scenes from my head. They didn't fit in my world. Food was the object. Arrowroot was arrowroot. Cake was cake. And if it was made with artisan dark chocolate and vanilla harvested by unicorns, all the better. People would crave it, order it, and pay for it. Food wasn't a metaphor---it was the commodity---and to couch it in other terms was fatuous. The one who prepared it best won.”

MotivationFood For ThoughtCommodityEmmaMetaphoricalMemories Of MotherWith LoveRight And Wrong Point Of View
Book:Lizzy and Jane
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“Sie gingen nach draußen, an den Kirschbäumen vorbei, über den Graben zu den Apfelbäumen, die Dirk zum Felde vor ein paar Jahren neu gepflanzt hatte, sie waren noch sehr klein, die Blüte hatte schon begonnen. Jetzt waren sie vereist. Zweige, Blätter, Blüten sahen aus, als wären sie in Glas gegossen, Bäume wie Kronleuchter, sie blendeten im frühen Sonnenlicht, man ging durch einen Spiegelsaal. Sie gingen schweigend, hörten nichts als ihre Schritte auf dem vereisten Gras und über sich die Möwen. In dicken Tropfen fiel das Wasser von den Bäumen, weil das Eis jetzt in der Sonne schmolz. „Man kriegt das nicht so oft zu sehen“, sagte Vera. Sie blieben stehen, die Hände in den Taschen, es war sehr schön. „Alles hinüber“, sagte Anne. Vera schüttelte den Kopf. Sie nannten es Frostberegnung, die Bauern machten es in kalten Frühjahrsnächten, besprühten ihre Blüten mit feinen Wassertröpfchen, die im Nachtfrost dann zu einer dünnen Eisschicht wurden. Eismäntel für die Blüten. Frostschutz durch Vereisung.”

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Book:Altes Land
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“But there is a great difference between Fanon's bloody knives and Sartre's bloody scalpel. True decolonization movements, from the American Patriots of the 1770s to the FLN in the 1950s, used actual violence to drive out their oppressors. Intellectuals who use the language of settler colonialism to critique their own society, in contrast, have no mass movement at their back. That has been the predicament of the ideology of settler colonialism from the beginning: everyone knows that calls to "eradicate," "kill," or "cull" settlers can only be metaphorical, so there is no need to put a limit on their rhetorical ferocity. But what if there were a country where settler colonialism could be challenged with more than words? Where all the evils attributed to it--from "emptiness" to "not-enoughness" to economic inequality, global warming, and genocide--could be given a human face? Best of all, what if that settler colonial society were small and endangered enough that destroying it seemed like a realistic possibility rather than a utopian dream? Such a country would be a perfect focus for all the moral passion and rhetorical violence that fuels the ideology of settler colonialism. It would be a country one could hate virtuously--especially if it were home to a people whom Western civilization has traditionally considered it virtuous to hate.”

HateViolenceVirtuousMetaphoricalSettler Colonialism
Book:On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice
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“On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.”

PeopleFirstsHumansChildrenWholeParentUnderstandingBornHuman BeingsRaceSawsFourDoorsPlanetsBrotherFitMurderFilledKillingRageViolentMortalsJealousBrutalApartmentBloodyIntuitiveCrowdedCapsGenesisCainMetaphoricalAbel
Book:Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files
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“I think about dying but I don't want to die. Not even close. In fact my problem is the complete opposite. I want to live, I want to escape. I feel trapped and bored and claustrophobic. There's so much to see and so much to do but I somehow still find myself doing nothing at all. I'm still here in this metaphorical bubble of existence and I can't quite figure out what the hell I'm doing or how to get out of it.”

ThinkingWantFeelsStillsI CanFactsProblemDiesExistenceHellDyingFiguresOppositesBoredBubblesTrappedDoing NothingWanting To DieMetaphoricalComplete Opposites
Author:Matthew Healy
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“I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer. I am none of these; I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.”

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Author:Primo Levi
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“We have said that consciousness is an operation rather than a thing, a repository, or a function. It operates by way of analogy, by way of constructing an analog space with an analog 'I' that can observe that space, and move metaphorically in it. It operates on any reactivity, excerpts relevant aspects, narratizes and conciliates them together in a metaphorical space where such meanings can be manipulated like things in space.”

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Book:The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
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“That the past is ahead, in front of us, is a conception of time that helps us retain our memories and to be aware of its presents. What is behind us [the future] cannot be seen and is liable to be forgotten readily. What is ahead of us [the past] cannot be forgotten so readily or ignored, for it is in front of our minds' eyes, always reminding us of its presence. The past is alive in us, so in more than a metaphorical sense the dead are alive - we are our history.”

MindHelpingEyePastMemoriesBehindsAliveFrontsForgottenConceptionIgnoredOur MemoriesRemindingLiableMetaphorical
Author:Epeli Hau'ofa
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“Running has taken me on adventures great and small, at home and around the world. It has provided me with hope and perseverance on days when I had none-and even, once every great while, warmed me with that fleeting ray of sunshine known as glory. Running has taught me that I can do anything, just so long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that notion is metaphorical and sometimes not. In this way, I have been inspired to attempt things I would have never dreamed possible. And it all started with a single step.”

WorldWayLongHas BeensI CanSometimesHomeMotivationalRunningCan DoKnownStepsTakenFeetFrontsTaughtAdventureGloryInspiredNotionPerseveranceAround The WorldSunshineRaysFleetingMetaphoricalSingle StepRay Of Sunshine
Book:To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking On a 5-K Makes You a Better Person (and the World a Better Place)
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“It's hard to go. It's scary and lonely...and half the time you'll be wondering why the hell you're in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires. But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful... It will open up your life.”

LittlesSoulHardBeautifulNightHalfWonderHellLonelyFingersScaryFlatsTireMetaphoricalAustinDakotaMongoliaNorth DakotaFlat Tires
Author:Cheryl Strayed
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“With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.”

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Author:Meghan O'Rourke
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