Picture Metaphor Quotes

Nothing is more symptomatic of the enervation, of the decompression of the Western imagination, than our incapacity to respond to the landings on the Moon. Not a single great poem, picture, metaphor has come of this breathtaking act, of Prometheus' rescue of Icarus or of Phaeton in flight towards the stars. ~ George Steiner

I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones. ~ Joseph Conrad

Yeah, I'm sure that's him," he would add when shown a picture of Gordon Way. "I only wasn't sure at first because in the picture he's got his mouth closed. ~ Douglas Adams

Every conversation, every cuddle, aver kiss and caress, even every disagreement, adds another brushstroke to the picture of home you paint with the days and hours of your life. ~ Thomas Kinkade

He has always had a dread of crossing borders, he doesn't like to leave what's known and safe for the blank space beyond in which anything can happen. Everything at times of transition takes on a symbolic weight and power. But this too is why he travels. The world you're moving through flows into another one inside, nothing stays divided any more, this stands for that, weather for mood, landscape for feeling, for every object there is a corresponding inner gesture, everything turns into metaphor. The border line on a map, but also drawn inside himself somewhere. ~ Damon Galgut

The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do. ~ Andy Warhol

The more clear and definite you make your picture then,and the more you dwell upon it, bringing out all its delightful details, the stronger your desire will be, and the stronger your desire, the easier it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you want. ~ Wallace D. Wattles

The memories are so close I feel your presence everywhere. And I see forward so clearly and sadly to a time when the memories will be distant. I won't be able to picture your painting things scattered on a flat rock in Ammoudi or your bare feet soaking up the sunshine on Valia's garden wall. Now I see them. Long after that I will remember them. ~ Ann Brashares

I think it's broken," Greg said, holding on to the camera. "The photos just don't come out right. It's hard to explain."
"Maybe it's not the photos. Maybe it's the photographer," Shari teased.
"Maybe I'll take a photo of you getting a knuckle sandwich," Greg threatened. He raised the camera to his eye and pointed it at her.
"Snap that, and I'll take a picture of you eating the camera," Shari threatened playfully. ~ R.L. Stine

What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? - "Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam." Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. The ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Blindness to larger contexts is a constitutional defect of human thinking imposed by the painful necessity of being able to concentrate on only one thing at a time. We forget as we virtuously concentrate on that one thing that hundreds of other things are going on at the same time and on every side of us, things that are just as important as the object of our study and that are all interconnected in ways that we cannot even guess. Sad to say, our picture of the world to the degree to which it has that neatness, precision, and finality so coveted by scholarship is a false one.
I once studied with a famous professor who declared that he deliberately avoided the study of any literature east of Greece lest the new vision destroy the architectonic perfection of his own celebrated construction of the Greek mind. His picture of that mind was immensely impressive but, I strongly suspect, completely misleading. ~ Hugh Nibley

Well, [bluntness in songwriting]'s a lot cheaper than therapy ... There's been a lot of things going on for the past 10 years that I just never really confronted, or used metaphors to do so. This time out I wanted to make sure that everyone knows what I'm talking about and where I'm coming from. ~ Brent Smith

I don't look for things to see how they function as metaphors ... You can't photograph the sublime. You can only traffic in the specific and its relationship to the symbolic. ~ John Divola

But that's typical of me. "This is going to end in tears," I tell myself every time I balance a cup of coffee on the upholstered arm of the chair I'm sitting on. And then, lo and behold, the cup topples and even before it lands, I tell myself, "Told me so!" Not to spell out, or spill out, one of the metaphors of my life, but I always do the stupid thing and then I do it again. I never learn. ~ Patricia Marx

For no matter the shadows of an age, the picture of a young couple in love, we are told, speaks most luminously of the future, as the span of that passion makes us believe we can overleap any walls, obliterate whatever obstacles. ~ Chang-rae Lee

Stavia saw herself as in a picture, from the outside, a darkly cloaked figure moving along a cobbled street, the stones sheened with a soft, early spring rain. ~ Sheri S. Tepper

Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete picture. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

When I do a still picture, I'm doing it all by myself with no help. I'm designing everything. I am my own art director. I'm doing everything. I'm directing, editing, whatever. ~ Vilmos Zsigmond

When I'm drawing a picture, I feel ... quiet inside. ~ Katherine Applegate

If the house were on fire, what would you save? The cat? The computer? The only existing picture of your dead sister? Rather, the question should be: What would you be willing to lose? For Zoe Rutherford the answer was: everything. ~ Tanya Anne Crosby

Something created everything because nothing can't create anything. Nothing can't create something. Something has to create something. No one can give a demonstration of nothing creating something. But I can give numerous demonstrations of something creating something. This proves that there had to have been a Creator. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That lines up perfectly with the concept that something created everything because nothing can't create anything. Those that say that the universes evolved from nothing can't give an example of nothing creating something. But those that say that there was a Creator can give numerous examples of something creating something. I could also say it like this. Lets say that both the atheist and the theist were each standing by two separate tables. On each table there was one piece of paper and one pencil. A piece of paper and a pencil for each of them.
Okay, it's the job for both the atheist and the theist to get a picture of a tree on their piece of paper using their logic of how the universe was created. The atheist would have to stand there until nothing put that picture on that piece of paper. The theist would have to walk over to the table, pick up the pencil, and actually draw the tree on the piece of paper. Now then, who's logic would get that picture on that piece of paper. Naturally it would be the theist. Because nothing can't create something. It takes something to create something. ~ Calvin W. Allison

The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star. ~ Charlotte Bronte

And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?" "I think so." Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending." "Snap ending." Mildred nodded. "Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. ~ Ray Bradbury

Fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in isolation, without looking at the big picture, would be short-sighted. ~ Bethany McLean

He was going to learn about sheep, and the high pasturages, and look at a wider sky, and walk ever further and further towards the Mountains, always uphill. Beyond that I cannot guess what became of him. Even little Niggle in his old home could glimpse the Mountains far away, and they got into the borders of his picture; but what they are really like, and what lies beyond them, only those can say who have climbed them. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Falling in love: how does it work? Over the years we gather the odd clue, but nothing adds up. We'd like to think we have a picture of our future partner projected in our mind, all their qualities recorded as if on film, and we just search the planet for that person until we find them, sitting in Casablanca waiting to be recognised. But in reality our love lives are blown around by career and coincidence, not to mention lack of nerve on given occasions, and we never have respectable reasons for anything until we have to make them up afterwards for the benefit of our curious friends. ~ Michel Faber

Every picture of you is when you were younger. ~ Mitch Hedberg

Exactly. You know what it says in the Book of Job." "Remind me." "Well, Satan is there in heaven, with God. God says, where have you been? And Satan says, roaming around the earth! It's a regular conversation. And they begin arguing about Job. Satan believes Job's goodness is founded entirely upon his good fortune. And God agrees to let Satan torment Job. This is the most nearly true picture of the situation which we possess. God doesn't know everything. The Devil is a good friend of his. And the whole thing is an experiment. And this Satan is a far cry from being the Devil as we know him now, worldwide." "You're really speaking of these ideas as if they were real beings ... ~ Anne Rice

[F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation ... ~ Nikolai Gogol

So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician's assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete. ~ Lynne Truss

[ ... ] the less you know, the less you will be aware of your ignorance. The familiar metaphor is that the wider the circle of our knowledge, the greater its contact with the unknown, and the more oppressive our feeling of cognitive inadequacy. By contrast, a small mind finds a small world to match it, and the smaller the mind the more it feels it has the world sussed. ~ Raymond Tallis

I am too good at making you see what you want to see. It has been hard my whole life to make that picture seem so perfect. The perfect daughter in the perfect family who was after all not so perfect. There was again only the illusion of what outsiders wanted to see. ~ Abigail George

Man's hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove. ~ Ralph Ellison

On its first over was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its subtitle was "Access to Tools." The underlying philosophy was that technology could be our friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, "A realm of intimate, personal power is developing- power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog. ~ Walter Isaacson

The Bible offers three metaphors that teach us God's view of life: Life is a test, life is a trust, and life is a temporary assignment. ~ Rick Warren

Not for the first time, I wonder if Drew Evans is the devil - or a close relation. I can picture him offering the fastingChrist a loaf of bread and making it sound completely acceptable for him to take a big ole bite out of it. ~ Emma Chase

It isn't what a picture is of, it is what it is about. ~ John Szarkowski

Culture is like the visible and invisible levels of an iceberg -"the solid state of "water. ~ Pearl Zhu

There is an old-fashioned distinction between the novel of character and the novel of incident, which must have cost many a smile to the intending romancer who was keen about his work. It appears to me as little to the point as the equally celebrated distinction between the novel and the romance- to answer as little to any reality. There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning, and I can as little imagine speaking of a novel of character as I can imagine speaking of a picture of character. When one says picture, one says of character, when one says novel, one says of incident, and the terms may be transposed. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? ~ Henry James

I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so. ~ Jacques-Henri Lartigue

That is because you don't yet know how to deal with time," said Wen. "But I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not."
"Will I have to wash it?" said Clodpool.
Wen gave him a long, slow look.
"That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which, do you think, it was?"
Clodpool looked at his feet. Then he looked at the sky. Then he looked at Wen.
"I think I am stupid, master."
"Good," said Wen. "It is fortuitous that you are my apprentice at this time, because if I can teach you, Clodpool, I can teach anyone. ~ Terry Pratchett

He disapproved of the metaphor: he wanted to tell her that one shouldn't compare one's personal unhappiness to the most horrible crime in history. ~ Brian Morton

There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa
and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else's, but likely to be haugthily disagreed with by all those who believed in some other Africa ... Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers.
Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home. ~ Beryl Markham

I like sitting at outdoor restaurants; it would be nice to go someplace on the street and not worry about somebody taking my picture while I'm about to take a bite of something. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

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