Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
When I say 'Crush your enemy', I don't literally mean it.
The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.
I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.
Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals.
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations.
Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative.
You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene.
I have loved you woman as surely as I have named you rust and sand and nylon.
I never was the story. The story was the story. Period.
The great grey beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive.
'Life of Pi' was actually a very simple novel to write.
The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of the dissimilar.
My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.
With the 'Watchmen' comic, we attempted to tell it in an accessible way. I deliberately made the artwork very clear, deceptively so. You think you're sucking on a sweetie, but it turns out to be a sugar-coated chili.
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment.
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.
Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.
