“A metaphor is like a simile.”

— Steven Wright

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Steven Wright178

American actor and author 1955

Giannina Braschi book United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

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

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 24 (p. 296)

“He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him.”

Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere

Source: Neverwhere (1996), Chapter 16

“Where to start?
Everything cracks and shakes,
The air trembles with similes,
No one world's better than another;
the earth moans with metaphors.”

Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) Russian poet and essayist

Source: Selected Poems

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Context: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.