My faith is a tool I employ, a metaphorical context I find apt, but it is inert until placed in a hand that needs it.

Traumatic events, by definition, overwhelm our ability to cope. When the mind becomes flooded with emotion, a circuit breaker is thrown that allows us to survive the experience fairly intact, that is, without becoming psychotic...

They say the eyes are the window to the soul.

There’s always hope. And oceans. Hope and oceans.

Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things—like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. One night in Hiroshima it occurred to me...

We, Brandy and Alfa and me, we’ve been speaking English as a second language so long that we’ve forgotten it as our first.I have no native tongue.

The HBS logo shone high above, a surrogate sun for the overcast day.

But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.

Birds shouldn’t be able to find tearsThey are the definition of freedom

Delia was an overbearing cake with condescending frosting, and frankly, I was on a diet.

For the people of my country,” Renato said, “water is everything: love, life, religion… even God.””It is like that for me too,” I said. “In English we call that a metaphor.””Of course,” said Renato, “and...

The earth is buzzing with metaphor

Nowadays films and television are what I like to call “Microwave Media”. I like mine in the oven, giving the production time to simmer; get the juices flowing, and cooked to perfection. And that takes...

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

Trees lose their leaves in blizzards like these.

When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin.

I had to hand it to him, leaving the empty glove lying on the bed was an apt metaphor for love. Two things I can say about my grandpa are that he is wise, and...

It would not be fair to say that the fire stole my faith, since in truth it has been slipping away from me all my life, flipping between my fingers like a shiny little minnow–such...

If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.

Suffering is the fuel in the engine of civilization.”-Vergere

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.

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.

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...