#metaphor

Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#fantasy #literary-criticism #metaphors #tolkien #writing

If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time. ↗

— Octavio Paz

#couple #excellence #forces #forms #human

There seem to be only two kinds of people: Those who think that metaphors are facts, and those who know that they are not facts. Those who know they are not facts are what we call "atheists," and those who think they are facts are "religious." Which group really gets the message? ↗

— Joseph Campbell

#metaphors #mythology #religion #theism #art

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 word wide. The word not whore nor cenobite. The word unlied. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#art

Why did we divorce? I guess you could say we had trouble synchronizing. You know that carnival ride where two cages swing in opposite directions, going higher and higher until they go over the top? That was us. We passed each other all the time, but we never actually stopped in the same place until it was time to get off the ride. ↗

— Diane Hammond

#divorce #imagery #true-artistry #dreams

I was convinced that she was about to tell me my card was declined, and assumed Derek wanting to talk later meant he'd soon be telling me our life was declined. Everything, everyone had reached their limits with me. ↗

— Joshua Mohr

#life #metaphor #relatable #life

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 a far cry from the trophy salmon that dangled from my father's fist. ↗

— Elissa Janine Hoole

#faith

Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see. ↗

— James Salter

#forest #metaphor #people #trees #family

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

— Jim Butcher

#life #metaphor #zen #humor

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry. ↗

— Yann Martel

#life-of-pi #metaphor #pain #suffering #time