“I don’t want to be a simile anymore, I want to be a metaphor.”

United States of Banana (2011)

"Lust, Caution – Tony Leung interview" (2007) https://tonyleung.info/tony/?p=237

interview with 3am
Context: The thing about good pulp is that you trust the reader and you know that the mind is a machine to process metaphors so of course all those connections will be there. But you've also granted the fantastic its own dynamic and allowed that awe. There's no contradiction. So I want to have monsters as a metaphor but I also want monsters because monsters are cool. There's no contradiction.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/article532790.ece
On boxing

The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.
Context: In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

Source: The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: Beauty Queens