Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.

One recalls the literary writer who, after grasping a story of a Mars voyage as a metaphor for isolation and the precariousness of relationships, realized that at a deeper, more subtle level it might even...

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

She’s all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday.

Listen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can’t fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows....

Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it...

I was running and deliberately lost my way. The world far off and nothing but my breath and the very next step and it’s like hypnosis. The feeling of conquering my own aliveness with no...

In philosophy, metaphorical pluralism is the norm. Our most important abstract philosophical concepts, including time, causation, morality, and the mind, are all conceptualized by multiple metaphors, sometimes as many as two dozen. What each philosophical...

Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with...

The winged word. The mercurial word. The word that is both moth and lamp. The word that is itself and more. the associative word light with meanings. The word not netted by meaning. The exact...

And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?

His body had almost no hair and his naked little circumcised johnson was nearly as pale as the rest of him, white as a boy’s – perhaps over time one’s genitals emerge from the pots...

If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture – it...

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is–the...

I’m oxygen and he’s dying to breathe.

If Music is a Place — then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.

This jeweled coast does not shine for its gems are coated with grit.

The cork was in the bottle. He and the Atropos were trapped.

ty var människas handstil förändras oavbrutet, en liten smula vart år, kanske omärkligt för henne själv, men lika oundvikligt och säkert som ansiktet, hållningen, rörelserna, själen.

Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Thought-criminal!’, the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow...

I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don’t know where it will take me, because I don’t know anything. I could...

The well-being of a neuron depends on its ability to communicate with other neurons. Studies have shown that electrical and chemical stimulation from both a neuron’s inputs and its targets support vital cellular processes. Neurons...

Walking a short way back along the embankment, almost to where the cross stood, Smiley took another look at the bridge, as if to establish whether anything had changed, but clearly it had not, and...

A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another.

I love metaphor the way some people love junk food. I think metaphorically, feel metaphorically, see metaphorically. And if anything in writing comes easily, comes unbidded, often unwanted, it is metaphor. Like follows as as...

and all anyone’ll have done is eaten a lot of expensive cheese.

Yes, I can speak to this one. He can be my rider.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue

A faint tickling on the back of his right hand caused Eragon to look down. A huge, wingless cricket clung to his glove. The insect was hideous: black and bulbous, with barbed legs and a...

When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.

As history shows, dead metaphors make good idols.

I always thought of it like you said, that all the strings inside him broke. But there are a thousand ways to look at it: maybe the strings break, or maybe our ships sink, or...

The statue of Justice, symbol of the law, as she holds aloft her balance scale, is blindfolded. Justice is blind to race, creed, color – and to personal eccentricity. If there were a comparable state...

As the new Adam, it might be said, his final act was to cast the Apple of Knowledge into the deep blue sea.

Once a flower is picked it immediately begins to die.

They were completely vague. They expressed everything and nothing. ‘It is the Æolian harp of style,’ thought Julien. ‘Amid the most lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, the infinite, etc., I can see no reality save...

It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll’s house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.

This kindness, this stupid kindness, is what is most truly human in a human being. It is what sets man apart, the highest achievement of his soul. No, it says, life is not evil!This kindness...

[Francesca] ‘You really are a few biscuits short of breakfast.’His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.’You’re a few colors shy of a rainbow?’ she offered. ‘Not pulling a full wagon? Knitting with only one needle? All foam...

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

Anne tried to bite her tongue, but she was finding her mouth bloody too often.

In asking philosophical questions, we use a reason shaped by the body, a cognitive unconscious to which we have no direct access, and metaphorical thought of which we are largely unaware. The fact that abstract...

it’s colder than a witch’s tit in a steel bra

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar

She’s the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

Where glowing embers through the roomTeach light to counterfeit a gloom…

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

Our metaphors for the operation of the brain are frequently drawn from the production line. We think of the brain as a glorified sausage machine, taking in information from the senses, processing it and regurgitating...

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.