James Geary Quotes

The simile sets two ideas side by side; in the metaphor they become superimposed.

Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons, or Celts, Can't seem just to say anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.

I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it throws in a load of fish.

Metaphor is one of a group of problem-solving medicines known as figures of speech which are normally used to treat literal thinking and other diseases.

I don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes.

Metaphor is embodied in language.

Metaphor is not just the detection of patterns; it is the creation of patterns.

Even in a less exaggerated description, any verbal account of a person is bound to find itself employing an assortment of waterfalls, lightning rods, landscapes, birds, etc.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

The point—the power to hurt—of all figures [of speech] consist in the truthfulness of their application.

Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.

I enjoy the inventive ways in which language is manipulated to make meaning.

I am a consummate metaphor addict.

In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts.

Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

It's all like an ocean!" cried Dostoevski. I say it's all like cellophane.

The word "metaphor" means carrying something from one place to another . . . and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word "metaphor" is a metaphor. I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining and apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

I love metaphor the way some people love junk food.

I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Many of today's verses are prose and bad prose.

Prose cannot compete with the economy of poetry, the ability to have a full artistic experience in a short period of time.