Top 100 It's A Metaphor Quotes
#1. And I have faith that you'll make a wonderful head of the Council someday, Sophie.
Yeah, except for that whole sleeping with the enemy part, I thought. Wait, not that I would actually be sleeping with ... I mean, it's a metaphor. There would only be metaphorical sleeping.
Rachel Hawkins
#2. Metaphorically I am made of chairs. It's a metaphor though. That means I am not actually made of the chairs.
Thom Yorke
#3. The war against terror is like a war against dandruff. It's a metaphor. It's not about anything.
Gore Vidal
#4. It's a metaphor for life. If sports don't matter, then life doesn't matter.
Emily Giffin
#5. I wanted to define the vocabulary of a wedding both visually and intellectually. The book is about more than weddings or wedding dresses. It's a metaphor for women's lives, their creativity.
Vera Wang
#6. You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing." "It's a metaphor,
John Green
#7. They see me as a symbol, and not a human being. That way they can kill me, say it's not murder it's a metaphor.
Ani DiFranco
#8. The Blood Decanter is really a myth. It's a metaphor that we all watch, we all stand before it, awed and reverent; but in actuality, it's a demon that steals your soul.
A.L. Mengel
#9. It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing.
Terry Pratchett
#10. It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.
John Green
#11. There's something about the superheroes and the idea behind their relationship with humans, whether it's a metaphor for the better part of ourselves, or the more flawed part of ourselves. So it seems to really be our own pop-culture version of Greek mythology.
Clark Gregg
#12. What's this?" he inquired, none too pleasantly. "A circus?"
"No, Julius. It's the end of the circus."
"I see. And these are the clowns?"
Foaly's head poked through the doorway.
"Pardon me for interrupting your extended circus metaphor, but what the hell is that?
Eoin Colfer
#13. It's just that romance, with its dips and turns and glooms and highs, its swoops and swoons and blues, is a natural metaphor for music itself
Nick Hornby
#14. I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.
David Levithan
#15. It's a wonder you don't see the zebra being trotted out as a metaphor for racial harmony more often.
Dov Davidoff
#16. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe # running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life,
Haruki Murakami
#17. I like zombie movies. I like 'The Walking Dead;' I like the metaphor of it, simply because when we go with the zombie concept - if you're bitten by a zombie, you don't transform into something else like a vampire or a werewolf or whatever. You become something that's not you.
Marilyn Manson
#18. We are not just tickling the dragon's tail; we are timing a flyby through its open jaws while it is yawning.
Marko Kloos
#19. Now the power of the imagination is a unifying power, hence the force of metaphor; and the poet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor ... the world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion.
R.S. Thomas
#20. But people need to cling to something," Oshima says. "They have to. You're doing the same, even though you don't realize it. It's like Goethe said: Everything's a metaphor.
Haruki Murakami
#21. The buzzing was like the eager purr of a muscle car that had just been started, but left in neutral. That was another of Cody's metaphors for it; I'd said the sensation felt like an unbalanced washing machine filled with a hundred epileptic chimpanzees. Pretty proud of that one.
Brandon Sanderson
#22. It's so much easier to shut the refrigerator door, which is totally a metaphor, I realize, for my life
Matthew Quick
#23. Men feel about sex the way vampires feel about blood. They don't just like it, they crave it. That's why vampire stories always have strong sexual undercurrents. A vampire's hunger is simply a metaphor for a man's lust. And if a guy is paying attention to you, he wants to have sex with you.
Oliver Markus
#24. Face, to me, is a metaphor of sadness. And I want to share this sadness. I'm not really interested whether it's an Indian face or not - that's not as important for me. But it's still important to establish the relationships in order to bring about a consciousness of our fragility.
Luis Gonzalez
#25. Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.
China Mieville
#26. 'Safe Harbor' is a state of mind ... it's the place - in reality or metaphor - to which one goes in times of trouble or worry. It can be a friendship, marriage, church, garden, beach, poem, prayer, or song.
Luanne Rice
#27. The Bette Davis Club," she said. "You've joined, you're a member. It's my metaphor for any female - and there've been zillions - who gets a crush on a gay fellow, dates a gay fellow, or heaven help us, marries a gay fellow.
Jane Lotter
#28. I would say that the emblematic photographic image is a picture from inside a room looking out. I think this defines photography. It's the metaphor for the notion of first sight. What one saw first.
Robert Polidori
#29. We all struggle. Life is not fun. A lot of times, it's really painful and hard. Sometimes it's really funny. 'Foxcatcher' is kind of like a metaphor for that.
Mark Schultz
#30. There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English.
Anne Carson
#31. On the way home I remembered a bit of old folklore about how to boil a frog. You put it in cold water, then start turning up the heat. If you do it gradually, the frog is too stupid to jump out. I don't know if it's true or not, but I decided it was an excellent metaphor for growing old.
Stephen King
#32. I loved the world of roller derby because I thought it was such an empowering metaphor, that you get out there and do it. It's such a rocker, athletic, capable, cool exhibitionist sport; it's about this great sort of camaraderie.
Drew Barrymore
#33. I've spoken often of how the fantasy genre is able to, with the greatest freedom among all the genres, take a metaphor and make it real. But of course that's only the starting point.
Steven Erikson
#34. Beyond diversity, the story of Obama's influence on the courts is more complex. Indeed, it could serve as a metaphor for his Presidency: symbolically rich but substantively hazy. Obama took office after years of intense conservative focus on the courts.
Jeffrey Toobin
#35. 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
#36. There's a metaphor in that somewhere - like all of life is about ending up somewhere you didn't expect, and learning to just be happy with it.
Lauren Oliver
#37. There's a metaphor for the American public in here," Gansey murmered darkly, "but it escapes me at the moment.
Maggie Stiefvater
#38. Football is a metaphor for the kind of country we want to create. It's based on merit.
Jack Kemp
#39. I'm sorry you lost the suit,' he said.
She shrugged.
'At this point, it was mostly a metaphor anyway,' she said ...
James S.A. Corey
#40. I think the labyrinth is an interesting metaphor for our lives as musicians. We're always being drawn toward the center of it because that's where the mystery is. What is music? It's a journey.
Sting
#41. There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.
What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone.
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
William Shakespeare
#42. I do genuinely believe that young people who play sport at a competitive level, sensibly controlled, sensibly organised, that has to be a good thing. It will teach them to win, it will teach them to lose with dignity and magnanimity - all the things you want. It's a pretty good metaphor for life.
Sebastian Coe
#43. The beauty of a metaphor is it doesn't have to be real to ring true. The instant a metaphor becomes true it ceases to be a metaphor, which suggests a disconnect between truth and what's commonly referred to as reality.
Sol Luckman
#44. But that's life right? It's just a shitty hand of cards. But then maybe somebody pulls out an Ace, and somebody else gets a four, or a ten. It's all in the draw and how you play it.
Mackenzie Herbert
#45. Whatever kind of story you're telling, whether it's a genre piece for a comic book or whatever it is, it has importance because it's all a metaphor for the existence of our being.
Seth Gabel
#46. It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.
Raymond Chandler
#47. Lean forward a little, my lord," Toot said instantly, and shouted, "Hey, Kernal Purpleweed! Come watch the Za Winter Lord Knight's back!"
I fought not to smile. "No, that's a metaphor," I said.
Toot frowned and scratched his head. "I don't know what it's for.
Jim Butcher
#48. A mist rises from a nearby mound. It could be me, that mist, or simply the caretaker's mower-dust. If the breeze blows just right, I'll ghost your solid, entwine your hair. Promise me you won't shampoo, but carry me along, tiny dust-particles of me.
Chila Woychik
#49. That's the only thing you can do with a mess. Start cleaning it up, a little at a time.
Lisa Wingate
#50. If there's a silver bullet in the battle to recapture Albany, it is the re-engagement of our citizens. This capital has become a physical metaphor for the isolation and alienation of our people.
Andrew Cuomo
#51. 50 Cent is a metaphor for "change". But originally it was a gangster from Fort Greene Projects named 50 Cent and I took the name when he passed and because he's not active, I thought it'd be cool to take it.
Curtis Jackson
#52. When a crime is committed, only the victim and the victim's close circle experience the event as pain, terror, death. To people hearing or reading about it, crime is a metaphor, a symbol of the ancient battles fought every day: evil versus good, chaos versus order.
S.J. Rozan
#53. Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is
the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
Winston S. Churchill
#54. Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We've done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it's much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it's not only easier to use but more efficient.
Steve Jobs
#55. Universal violence compels the language to be mute ... Silence is not only a metaphor of Hemingway's work; it is also the source of its formal excellence, its integrity.
Ihab Hassan
#57. It's been noted that writing about the production of art is a masquerade or metaphor for writing about writing. This may be true, there are similarities - both the verbal and the visual represent the thing or the concept.
Sarah Hall
#58. In his book, Samuelson grabs hold of Smith's wordplay and freebases meaning from it until a mere metaphor mutates into the economic doctrine that would define the shape and form of global finance for the remainder of the century, and beyond.
Anonymous
#59. If you remember only one thing I've said, remember that an idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor. If you have never made a good metaphor, then you don't know what it's all about.
Robert Frost
#60. There's a big luscious peach of a dream in L.A. The peach has been repeatedly exposed as overripe and tainted with wormholes... but it's still the only giant peach in town. Even if it's wet-brown and crawling with centipedes, everyone wants their bite.
Cintra Wilson
#61. The cartoon is a metaphor really for the fact that it's almost impossible in our celebrity obsessed culture to move around genres and sort of change you ideas, change your face, you know?
Damon Albarn
#62. Sci-fi is often a metaphor. I think it's more the themes and questions that science fiction raises rather than the exact predictions that should guide us.
Peter Singer
#63. I like to write about painting because I think visually. I see my writing as blocks of color before it forms itself. I think I also care about painting because I'm not musical. Painting to me is not a metaphor for writing, but something people do that can never be reduced to words.
A.S. Byatt
#64. Gardening is peaceful, yet there is a great element of failure. It's the perfect metaphor for life
a lot of pleasure, then it's over. There's great satisfaction in tending something, feeling it needs you, even if it's just a plant on your windowsill.
Jane Kaczmarek
#65. Detroit is a metaphor for America, for America's challenges and America's opportunities. It is a hothouse for new innovation, for ingenuity and risk taking. That doesn't happen in a lot of American cities. We need to be in Detroit because of that.
Darren Walker
#66. in our culture, women can do anything a man can. and vice versa."
don alfonso's eyebrows shot up. "i do not believe it."
"it's true," sally said defiantly.
"in America, the women hunt while the men have babies?
Douglas Preston
#67. For some people, 'ten feet tall' is just a metaphor. For me, it's more than twice my height!
Ruth Westheimer
#68. I mean, of course "King Kong" is a metaphor for the slave trade. I'm not saying the makers of "King Kong" meant it to be that way, but that's what, that's the movie that they made whether they meant to make it or not.
Quentin Tarantino
#69. I really embrace things that I think people who like music can relate to, they grew up with the same stuff and know the same references so when they hear it being used as a metaphor to something else they'll be like that's unique, or funny or something that's relatable to me.
Hoodie Allen
#70. It's like how science fiction in the '50s was a way of talking about war without actually having to risk any political capital. The obvious metaphor is power and powerlessness, but I also think it's a way of experimenting with dangerous feelings in a safe arena and trying things out.
Margaret Stohl
#71. It's like dance is a metaphor for going beyond where you think you can go.
Jennifer Grey
#72. It's a wonderful metaphor, catching a wave, for how you can look at other challenges in your life.
Jeff Bridges
#73. The dog who doesn't bark is about a silence that speaks; it is a good metaphor for the Pariah voice, the dog's voice, that we can sometimes hear only when it does not speak.
Wendy Doniger
#74. But how can you be there for someone who doesn't need you? It's like trying to scale a wall without anyone on the top throwing you a rope. You just keep sliding down and eventually your muscles give out, and your energy and your will and your heart.
Katie Kacvinsky
#75. I don't really know what it is about vampires that makes them such a powerful symbol, metaphor, whatever in people's consciousness. But I do know they're tremendously powerful. I mean, there's a vampire on 'Sesame Street.' And Count Chocula. I don't know why it's so powerful.
Alan Ball
#76. I always think of it you know building a business, building a brand, a friend of mine gave me a metaphor for it which I think is really true it's like building coral, you don't see it happening it's just little little little and when you step back you think wow.
Karen Walker
#77. Burnout is grist to the mill. I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words.
Grant Morrison
#78. Flower was a good metaphor for growth. The song is obviously about sexual responsibility, so that was the main metaphor. Also, it's like knowing who someone has been and remembering and appreciating that, but really appreciating what they are now even more.
Jody Watley
#79. "Terrorism" is a metaphor, it's an abstract noun. It's like having a war on dandruff. It's something from advertising, it's meaningless.
Gore Vidal
#80. When I hear real faithful people - whether it's a real Christian, or a real Buddhist, or a real Muslim - I hear them use the language I use for a friend. So my metaphor for God is friend.
Patch Adams
#81. Bloody ashes, woman. This isn't a metaphor for anything! It's just boots.
Robert Jordan
#82. Innocence is ignorance; ignorance is illusion; and Commencement, while it certainly is a metaphor, is no illusion. Commencement's for the disillusioned, not for the innocent.
John Barth
#83. Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be
at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror,
but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means.
It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
Gore Vidal
#84. Ghosts are a metaphor that can be interpreted so many different ways. There's no ending to what you can do. You can make it a fun ghost story. You can make it a deeply disturbing, psychological ghost story.
Guillermo Del Toro
#85. Often it's just a short swim from the shipwreck of your life to the island paradise of your dreams, assuming you don't drown in the metaphor.
Robert Breault
#86. The moon features frequently as a simile for beauty (and indeed Budur's name means 'moons'). Beautiful women are conventionally compared to gazelles. It was more common to evoke beauty through metaphor and simile than by close physical description.
Malcolm C. Lyons
#87. I spent the first 22 years of my life absorbing everything, like a big disgusting cell, and now I'm disgorging it with jokes added out into the world. That's a really gross metaphor.
Mallory Ortberg
#88. It was easier than explaining DiMaggio's use as a metaphor.
Paul Simon
#89. When raindrops hit the tin roof it's crazy. That's a metaphor, did I lose you baby?
Drake
#90. I love sports. Anytime I can combine sports with a film I'm a happy guy. It's such a natural fit, because sports always seems to be a metaphor for life. Always, always, always.
Dean Cain
#91. One of the things that happens a lot is you get to see how many times things happen, literal things happen and how they are completely metaphors for where you are. It's like a mirror is being held up just about an inch to your face.
Cheryl Strayed
#92. I loved Catwoman's sense of humor. I love how sly she is. I love how she, to use a cat metaphor, walks the fence and you don't know which side she's going to come down on. She's totally independent. And let's face it, she's badass.
Anne Hathaway
#93. This is a comment on fear. Today it's like 'They're going to bomb the New York subway and there's the avian flu and 50 million of us are going to die.' We wanted to make fun of that fear-based culture we've been plunged into. And Halloweens the perfect metaphor for fear.
Adam Gollner
#94. The debt ceiling debacle is almost a horrible metaphor: It's as if a bomb went off at 800 Pennsylvania Avenue and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. I don't know what these guys think they're doing, but it looks like they're committing political suicide.
Charlie Cook
#95. I'm super happy to see the record doing its thing and for people to like it, but for me, I had a great victory just as a person. I overstepped countless obstacles by creating that record. And the record's a metaphor for the personal steps I [took] throughout the past year.
Justin Vernon
#96. What draws me in is that a trip is a leap in the dark. It's like a metaphor for life. You set off from home, and in the classic travel book, you go to an unknown place. You discover a different world, and you discover yourself.
Paul Theroux
#97. Magnus, remember what happened the last time you tried to tango. Your shoe flew off and nearly killed someone."
"It was a metaphor. He's a Shadowhunter, he's a Lightwood, and he's into blonds. He's a dating hazard.
Cassandra Clare
#98. There's an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you're climbing into a metaphor.
Hugh Laurie
#99. It's possible to take that as a personal metaphor and then multiply it to a people, a race, a sex, a time. If we can keep this thing going long enough, if we can survive and teach what we know, we'll make it.
Audre Lorde
#100. The Internet is to our intellectual life what the universal unconscious is to our psychological life. In fact, the Internet is the new universal unconscious. It's not even a metaphor anymore.
Phillip DePoy
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