#metaphor

Where death follows, there’s life. When darkness surrounds you in a world of chaos, search and you’ll eventually find the light. ↗

— Lee Argus

#darkness #death #lee-argus #life #metaphor

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 unable to connect effectively with other neurons atrophy. Useless, an abandoned neuron will die. ↗

— Lisa Genova

#science #communication

Most people, including yourself, apparently, think The Moldau is about a river. It is not. It is a metaphor. It is about the progress of life, from its fragile beginnings through its joys and turbulence and on to its end, its magnificent end. ↗

— Gerald Elias

#death

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

— Maggie Stiefvater

#diet #frosting #humor #metaphor #diet

I am a shark. A shark who dreamed he was a man. ↗

— Rick Yancey

#metaphor #dreams

Metaphor isn't just decorative language. If it were, it wouldn't scare us so much. . . . Colorful language threatens some people, who associate it, I think, with a kind of eroticism (playing with language in public = playing with yourself), and with extra expense (having to sense or feel more). I don't share that opinion. Why reduce life to a monotone? Is that truer to the experience of being alive? I don't think so. It robs us of life's many textures. Language provides an abundance of words to keep us company on our travels. But we're losing words at a reckless pace, the national vocabulary is shrinking. Most Americans use only several hundred words or so. Frugality has its place, but not in the larder of language. We rely on words to help us detail how we feel, what we once felt, what we can feel. When the blood drains out of language, one's experience of life weakens and grows pale. It's not simply a dumbing down, but a numbing. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#metaphor #vocabulary #experience

It was my turn to be silent while a small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the left, sticking their tongues out at me. ↗

— Roger Zelazny

#family

Am I the moss on your bark, then?" Ani asked. Enna grabbed her around the waist and shook her affectionately. "You're the mossiest girl I know. ↗

— Shannon Hale

#metaphorical #humor

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 maybe we’re grass—our roots so interdependent that no one is dead as long as someone is alive. We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you’re imagining a world in which you can become irreparably broken. If you choose the grass, you’re saying that we are all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems not only to understand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications. Do you know what I mean? ↗

— John Green

#imagination

And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather are metaphors. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#metaphor #life