Figures Of Speech

Writing for me is

Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others. Elena Ferrante

Attitudes are the real

Attitudes are the real figures of speech. Edwin H Friedman

There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times. Edmund Burke

If the Prodigal Son’s

If the Prodigal Son’s a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech. Dan Barker

However and wherever war

However and wherever war begins, it persists, it spreads, it propagates itself through time and across space with the terrifying tenacity of a beast attached to the neck of living prey. This is not an idly chosen figure of speech. War spreads and perpetuates itself through a dynamic that often seems independent of human will. … Read more

Language becomes a prison

Language becomes a prison house only poets can escape…if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech. Arthur Quinn

He gave me a

He gave me a look of great contempt; as I supposed, for venturing, even by implication, to draw a parallel between a lack of affluence that might, literally, affect my purchase of rare vintages, and a figure of speech intended delicately to convey his own dire want for the bare necessities of life. He remained … Read more

It is no strain

It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man’s moral state that changes. The … Read more