“Metaphors are lies.”

—  Mark Haddon, book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Metaphors are lies." by Mark Haddon?
Mark Haddon photo
Mark Haddon35
English writer and illustrator 1962

Related quotes

Kazimir Malevich photo

“At the present time man's path lies through space, and Suprematism is a colour metaphor in its infinite abyss.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

1916
Quote in 'On space and Suprematism', Kasimir Malevich, 1916; as cited in Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, p. 58
1910 - 1920

“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor—not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies “out there” in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Glow, Big Glowworm", p. 264
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

G. K. Chesterton photo

“All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

&quot; A Defense of Slang http://books.google.com/books?id=8WpaAAAAMAAJ&amp;q=&amp;quot;all+slang+is+metaphor+and+all+metaphor+is+poetry&amp;quot;&amp;pg=PA110#v=onepage&quot; <br class="br">The Defendant (1901)

Milan Kundera photo

“Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Either ghosts are a metaphor for history, or history is a metaphor for ghosts.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 133

Jericho Brown photo

“A metaphor is a sign of desperation when we need another world to describe what we are feeling. Metaphors are about desperation and safety. We call out to metaphor because a metaphor makes us feel safe.”

Jericho Brown (1976) American writer

On how he employs metaphors in “Jericho Brown: ‘Poetry is a veil in front of a heart beating at a fast pace” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/28/jericho-brown-book-interview-q-and-a-new-testament-poetry in The Guardian (2018 Jul 28)

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“For her, this was a metaphor, he reminded himself. Though maybe he was a metaphor too, inside his head with the Black Gang. A metaphor gone metastatic.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature

Source: Nature

Pierre Bourdieu photo

“The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects which is itself but an endless circle of mutually reflecting metaphors.”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

Source: Equisse d'une Théorie de la Pratique (1977), p. 91

Umberto Eco photo

“The interpretation of metaphors shifts from the univocality of catachreses to the open possibilities offered by inventive metaphors.”

Umberto Eco book Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

[O] : Introduction, 0.2
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: The principle of interpretation says that "a sign is something by knowing which we know something more" (Peirce). The Peircean idea of semiosis is the idea of an infinite process of interpretation. It seems that the symbolic mode is the paramount example of this possibility.
However, interpretation is not reducible to the responses elicited by the textual strategies accorded to the symbolic mode. The interpretation of metaphors shifts from the univocality of catachreses to the open possibilities offered by inventive metaphors. Many texts have undoubtedly many possible senses, but it is still possible to decide which one has to be selected if one approaches the text in the light of a given topic, as well as it is possible to tell of certain texts how many isotopies they display.

Related topics