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Simile Quotes

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Simile Quotes

“The poet, however, uses these two crude, primitive, archaic forms of thought (simile and metaphor) in the most uninhibited way, because his job is not to describe nature, but to show you a world completely absorbed and possessed by the human mind.”

WorldWayMindHumansTwoUseShowsJobsFormPoetMetaphorHuman MindPossessedPrimitiveSimileCrude
Book:Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963
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“We speak now or I do, and others do. You've never spoken before. You will. You'll be able to say how the city is a pit and a hill and a standard and an animal that hunts and a vessel on the sea and the sea and how we are fish in it, not like the man who swims weekly with fish but the fish with which he swims, the water, the pool. I love you, you light me, warm me, you are suns. You have never spoken before.”

MenLightAbleSpeakWaterAnimalCitiesSunSeaLove YouStandardsFishesWarmHillsSwimPoolHuntsVesselSimilePitsSpeak Now
Author:China Mieville
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“When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.”

WayWritingLongStillsLightHairSurvivalTasksUnityFingersMetaphorHeavySlipsThickDiverseSoupAttemptingSimileHandfulFablesStrandsCoarseUnrulyDictionBraids
Author:Edwidge Danticat
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“Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like 'his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,' and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.”

LooksFacesDesireThreeForceObjectsWindThousandEvidenceCalmStatementsShipsBelovedPoeticBottlesSimileChampagneObjects Of Desire
Book:The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld
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“Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).”

IfsThinkingNeedsShouldWritingI CanEndsCertainTimeThreeShould HaveLowestThree TimesSimileDictionaryDefectiveAmmunition
Book:Selected Letters, 1917-1961
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“I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming . . . and a little mad.”

LittlesIdeasPlayWould BeSuccessStudyToo MuchCuttingEssentialsMathematicsMadHistoricalProfoundMathMathematicalCharmingConstructsSimileOpheliaOmitting
Book:Science and the Modern World
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“We come to the New Testament, where again a host of imperative verbs is mustered in support of that miserable bondage of free-choice, and the aid of carnal Reason with her inferences and similes is called in, just as in a picture or a dream you might see the King of the flies with his lances of straw and shields of hay arrayed against a real and regular army of seasoned human troops. That is how the human dreams of Diatribe go to war with the battalions of divine words.”

HumansWarRealReasonDreamMightChoicesSupportDivineKingsArmyAidsMiserableHostTroopsTestamentBondageSimileImperativesShieldsNew TestamentVerbsStrawsInferenceHayFree Choice
Author:Martin Luther
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“It's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.' By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim, 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react.”

NeedsShouldUseOrderPowerfulReaderTasteDegreesEmpathyBeatsDirectLet MeMetaphorSentencesMysteriousAweDescriptionLengthMelodyNervesAssociationApathyOfferingSimileStimulusBrevityAwe InspiringVoluptuousVowels
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write that a gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or wolf appeared. You will bring life to nature only if you don't shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind.”

IfsShouldWritingMindEyeNightDarkPiecesDogBrokenReaderActivityShadowDetailsInstanceHis EyesBottlesCaptureHumankindShrinksSimileDescribingGleamArrangingStarlightSmall Details
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“From authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.”

KnowsWorldWaySelfValuesEternalWeightPrisonDelightWitCommandStringsHospitalitySimileTorchesTentsMeterMazesColossalCadenceHumbugHyperbole
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.”

IfsKnowsDoeMomentsLawPlanetsCreaturesMake SenseManifestationPermitGesturesCommunionCoincidenceSimileOur PlanetHurricanesCoincidence In Life
Author:Roberto Bolano
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“Poetry is only secondarily about words. Primarily, it is about truth. I dealt with the Ding an Sich, the substance behind the shadow, weaving powerful concepts, similes, and connections the way an engineer would raise a skyscraper with the whiskered-alloy skeleton being constructed long before the glass and plastic and chromaluminum appears.”

WayLongTruthPoetryPowerfulBehindsConceptsShadowConnectionsRaisesGlassesSubstancePoetry IsPlasticEngineersSimileSkeletonsWeavingSkyscraper
Book:The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion
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“We all start out with the same alphabet. We are all unique. Talent is not the most important thing --- discipline and dedication are. Craft can be learned but desire and longing are innate. Despite the demands of school and just being young, try to write SOMETHING every day --- a description, a captured emotion, a simile, a metaphor. Read, for crying out loud! A writer must read the way a ball player must go to the ballfield every day to practice. Everything is possible in this world of ours--- and so's publication.”

WorldWayWritingTryingImportantSchoolYoungDesireEmotionPracticePlayerTalentCryThis WorldDisciplineDemandUniqueBallsImportant ThingsLongingMetaphorDespiteCraftsLoudDescriptionDedicationJust BeingInnateSimileCapturedPublicationAlphabetBall PlayersUnique Talents
Author:Robert Cormier
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