Metaphorical Devastation Quotes

It didn't seem like they were here to find food. Nor did they have the patience to bite anyone. Left to themselves, they'd quickly haul to particles of mud and built nests here and there in the house. You could try scuttling them with a broom, but they'd get into a mad frenzy and climb up the broom and on to your arm. Before you knew it, they'd be all over you, even under your clothes. For days on end there would be a terrific invasion, and then one day you would wake up to find them gone. There was no telling why they came, where they went. I sometimes saw them racing in lines along the window sills in the front room, where there was nothing to eat. Perhaps they were on a mission of some sort, only passing through our house in self-important columns. But not once did I see the trail of a column, an ant that had no other ants behind it. ~ Vivek Shanbhag

Racism has taken over America; discrimination and misogyny are the law. The clash between our better and darker instincts slams home.
It is the year 2037. What is now referred to as "The Great Madness of '16" has set loose moral, economic, and cultural devastation. In the once powerful United States, paranoia and hatred rage at epidemic levels.
Behind "The Great Barrier Walls", Red State citizens suffer near-slavery and dire hunger at the hands of totalitarian leaders calling themselves the PolitiChurch. Family Values Patrols work the streets, raping, maiming, and murdering in the name of Righteousness. Children are corralled and forced to work for the state.
The world is tearing itself apart. Between those who choose to hate, in an us-against-them world; and those who find healing through helping those in need.
Oppressive governments and bullying leaders crush their followers into mindless subservience, herding them like cattle, whipping up fear and hatred against outsiders.
As one side surges into ever more disturbing and twisted violence, some counterforce leading toward caring and truth seems to be awakening in others.
In this war there can be no compromise.
Had ancients predicted these times? Must mankind destroy itself? Is there no hope?
Or is there something we're not seeing?
- Back cover description of "The Soul Hides in Shadows ~ Edward Fahey

When we are blinded by our frustration and devastation we become oblivious to the life preserver floating inches away from us. If we take a minute to think positive, utilize our faith, and become proactive, we are able to think rationally and clearly. We then will recognize the life preserver which will keep us afloat and help us get to our destination. ~ Lindsey Rietzsch

The century would seek to dominate nature as it had never been dominated, would attack the idea of war, poverty and natural catastrophe as never before. The century would create death, devastation and pollution as never before. Yet the century was now attached to the idea that man must take his conception of life out to the stars. ~ Norman Mailer

Van Houten was still staring at the ceiling beams. He took a drink. The glass was almost empty again. 'Lidewij, I can't do it. I can't. I can't.' He leveled his gaze to me. 'Nothing happens to the Dutch Tulip Man. He isn't a con man or not a con man; he's God. He's an obvious and unambiguous metaphorical representation of God, and asking what becomes of him if the intellectual equivalent of asking what becomes of the disembodied eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg in Gatsby. Do he and Anna's man get married? We are speaking of a novel, dear child, not some historical enterprise. ~ John Green

Nothing in my life could prepare me for the utter devastation that three-letter word held at this moment. He had given his heart to another. Another broken promise, the one that carried the most hurt. ~ Ashlan Thomas

It seemed impossible that men with hearts and brains were capable of it. Such devastation of cities, so many innocent lives lost. It seemed to him that if just a small part of the effort put into war could be put into peace, they'd be so much better off ~ Elizabeth Berg

There are different kinds of anger. There is the kind that flares bright, like a fire devouring dry wood – an anger that dies as quickly as it ignites. There is the kind that takes its time to rise, but leaves devastation in its wake when it does. And then, there is the anger that is always there, in the pit of your belly – gnawing, biting and twisting – and reminding you of its presence every waking moment. This is the kind that can kill you, if given enough time. ~ Sam J. Charlton

I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe
but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry
poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs
is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song. ~ David Byrne

When dams were erected on the Columbia, salmon battered themselves against the concrete, trying to return home. I expect no less from us. We too must hurl ourselves against and through the literal and metaphorical concrete that contains and constrains us, that keeps us from talking about what is most important to us, that keeps us from living the way our bones know we can, that bars us from our home. It only takes one person to bring down a dam. ~ Derrick Jensen

In America, the top 1 percent led the country into war and economic devastation, leaving the less fortunate to fight for one and pay for both. ~ Graydon Carter

So, change lanes. Get your stride back. Don't stay on a road that can only lead you to further devastation ~ Rita Zahara

The 1.8 million child deaths each year related to clean water and sanitation dwarf the casualities associated with violent conflict. No act of terrorism generates economic devastation on the scale of the crisis in water and sanitation. Yet the issue barely registers on the international agenda. ~ Rose George

Throughout my career I've struggled to encourage people to read my books on a more metaphorical level. I'm less attached to my settings than, for example, Saul Bellow. The setting of a novel for me is just a part of the technique. I choose it at the end. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut. ~ Meghan O'Rourke

In asking philosophical questions, we use a reason shaped by the body, a cognitive unconscious to which we have no direct access, and metaphorical thought of which we are largely unaware. The fact that abstract thought is mostly metaphorical means that answers to philosophical questions have always been, and always will be, mostly metaphorical. In itself, that is neither good nor bad. It is simply a fact about the capacities of the human mind. But it has major consequences for every aspect of philosophy. Metaphorical thought is the principal tool that makes philosophical insight possible and that constrains the forms that philosophy can take. ~ George Lakoff

Hershey Pennsylvania was self-proclaimed as the "Sweetest Place On Earth," but less advertised than chocolate, it was also home to one of the state's largest Children's Hospitals. The streets lined with Hershey Kiss–shaped streetlamps that led excited children and families on vacation to chocolate tour rides and rollercoasters were the same exact streets that led anxious children and families to x-rays and MRIs on the worsts days of their lives.
Chocolate was being created on the same street that childhood diseases were being diagnosed. And that was life. The sweetest of sensations and the deepest of devastations live next door to each other. ~ Tessa Shaffer

The first light of day today revealed what we had feared. The devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming. ~ Kathleen Blanco

A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

A tendency to make metaphorical connections is an occupational hazard for those of us who write. ~ Alice McDermott

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

Before the crisis, my life moved along like a well-planned play. I showed up and acted my part while the script directed the flow. The devastation demanded I grieve while the play of my life continued around me. I wished I could stop the spinning stage long enough to catch my breath. ~ Shauna L. Hoey

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts ~ Maxine Hong Kingston

I think you sense the metaphorical resonance of what you're writing without analysing it too carefully. That leads you down dead ends. You stop imagining things and start writing towards these themes. ~ Joseph O'Neill

Also I just think I've been lucky enough to have great parents, and I've had good people around me who have always been honest with me, who would give me a purely metaphorical slap if I ever got too big for my boots. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34). ~ Oswald Chambers

The only good thing about nuclear war is that it is the single most egalitarian idea that man has ever had. On the day of reckoning, you will not be asked to present your credentials. The devastation will be indiscriminate. ~ Arundhati Roy

Talent? That's not talent. Talent is Liza Minnelli tap dancing and singing at the same time. What I just saw was devastation. Dying man on the cross. Salvation in B minor. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

Forgive my indifference; I'd rather be distant than devastated. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

Deliberately modifying the earth's atmosphere would be a desperate gamble with significant risks. Yet the more likely climate change is to cause devastation, the more attractive even the most perilous attempts to mitigate those changes will become. ~ Michael Specter

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ... Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. ~ Milan Kundera

This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no better than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places where the humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation. ~ Neil Gaiman

The planet Earth in its present mode of florescence is being devastated. This devastation is being fostered and protected by legal, political and economic establishments that exalt the human community while offering no protection to the non-human modes of being. There is an urgent need for a Jurisprudence (system of governance) that recognizes that the well-being of the integral world community is primary, and that human well-being is derivative - an Earth Jurisprudence. ~ Thomas Berry

April is the cruelest month.' So begins T.S. Eliot's 1922 masterpiece, a 434-line poem titled 'The Waste Land.' Until my employment as a trail maintenance worker, this had simply been a line on a page, albeit a line fraught with metaphorical import and potential. Now I saw it for what it was - a big fat lie - because Eliot grew up in St. Louis and no one forgets what a Missouri summer is like. If the Nobel laureate had been truthful with himself, the opening verse would start out, 'June's a bitch. ~ Michael Gurnow

When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or wanting this or desiring this, we're being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don't have a very good vocabulary to describe what others species do to us, because we think we're the only species that really does anything. ~ Michael Pollan

You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate. ~ Jim Rohn

Nearly two weeks have passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast, and while we are still dealing with the tremendous devastation - and will be for quite some time - we are also seeing increased signs of recovery and help in our region. ~ Jo Bonner

Warning: This read will cause lack of sleep! You wont want to put it down!

July 13, 2016 by Francine Baia
This was a long awaited novel in the Sword of the God series and it was most definitely well worth the wait. The author provides an all encompassing look into the inner thoughts and machinations of each character which is commanding. She tackles several serious subjects that are current in today's society, including PTSD and how it affects people differently and the devastation it causes on family. Several love stories are explored which keeps the readers on edge and wanting more. The integration of languages and cultures are seamless and readily understandable which bolsters the depth of the multiple storylines and at times is masterfully interlaced with comic relief. This is truly an enjoyable read that you will find difficult to put down. Anxiously anticipating the next installment! ~ Anna Erishkigal

On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain. ~ Jim Butcher

I think poetry without metaphor is like husband and wife living in separate bedrooms. ~ Munia Khan

The devastation of the ancient Christian community in Iraq is well known. ~ Elliott Abrams