Quotes on Metaphor

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

Quest is at the heart of what I do-the holy grail, and the terror that you'll never find it, seemed a perfect metaphor for life.

The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.

Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life

Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics.

Your body is the ground and metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your life story. Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body. In the marriage of flesh and spirit divorce is impossible.

I know that to personalize the Earth System as Gaia, as I have often done and continue to do in this book, irritates the scientifically correct, but I am unrepentant because metaphors are more than ever needed for a widespread comprehension of the true nature of the Earth and an understanding of the lethal dangers that lie ahead.

Human beings, you see, do absolutely two primary things. We see like and unlike. Like becomes, in literature, simile and metaphor. Unlike becomes uniqueness and difference, from which I believe, the novel is born.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.

Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.

It's frightening and exhilarating. It's like combat. Look at the metaphors: You kill when it works; you die when it doesn't.

By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Metaphors are fine if they aid understanding, but sometimes they get in the way.

I don't go into the studio with the idea of 'saying' something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.

The poet wants to ‘say’ something. Why, then, doesn’t he say it directly and fortrightly? Why is he willing to say it only through his metaphors? Through his metaphors, he risks saying it partially and obscurely, and risks saying nothing at all. But the risk must be taken, for direct statement leads to abstraction and threatens to take us out of poetry altogether.

Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor

The word and the shadow of the word / makes a thing both itself and something else / till we are metaphors and not ourselves . . .

Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate and learn, discover and invent.

All words, in every language, are metaphors.