#simi

However, the struggle with that sentinel is, as a rule, not so hard as it may seem from a long way off, mainly in consequence of the antagonism between the ills of the body and the ills of the mind. If we are in great bodily pain, or the pain lasts a long time, we become indifferent to other troubles; all we think about is to get well. In the same way great mental suffering makes us insensible to bodily pain; we despise it; nay, if it should outweigh the other, it distracts our thoughts, and we welcome it as a pause in mental suffering. It is this feeling that makes suicide easy; for the bodily pain that accompanies it loses all significance in the eyes of one who is tortured by an excess of mental suffering. This is especially evident in the case of those who are driven to suicide by some purely morbid and exaggerated ill-humor. No special effort to overcome their feelings is necessary, nor do such people require to be worked up in order to take the step; but as soon as the keeper into whose charge they are given leaves them for a couple of minutes, they quickly bring their life to an end. When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer Studies in Pessimism

#pessimism #schopenhauer #studies-in-pessimism #suicide #dreams

Sound is so important to creative writing. Think of the sounds you hear that you include and the similes you use to describe what things sound like. 'As she walked up the alley, her polyester workout pants sounded like windshield wipers swishing back and forth.' Cadence, onomatopoeia, the poetry of language are all so important. Learn all that you can about how to bring sound into your work. ↗

— Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

#simile

I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split. ↗

— Raymond Chandler

#simile

Jesus was a man for simple people. He didn't make his messages incredibly complex. If you were a person that had the eyes to see and the ears to hear... then his message was easily understood. ↗

— Brandon Andress

#ears #eyes #hear #jesus #jesus-christ

His nostrils flared, he was breathing like a picadored bull. ↗

— Jerry Spinelli

#simile #simile

Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. ↗

— Roberto Bolaño

#simile

It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#paraphrased #simile #simile

A friend... sort of. Ren watches me like I'm a cookie jar he wouldn't mind being caught with his hands in. ↗

— Andrea Cremer

#yearning #simile

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy. ↗

— Sarah Addison Allen

#morning #new-day #simile #simile

I respond, thoughts dropping away, like pebbles plopping one by one in water, sinking down, down into dark oblivion. ↗