Quotes About Symbolism

The moon was full. It looked like a breast engorged with milk because of all the babies crying in the night.

There was a painting of Jesus rolling his eyes up at the sky in every room.

The saying is that in the house where rosemary thrives, the women of that house are its strength.

my teacher read me The Chambered Nautilus, and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-working mantle of the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.

I am no worshiper of cloth of any color, but I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle.

My teacher read me The Chambered Nautilus [a nature poem], and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-working mantle of the nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.

If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.

The 1890s was perhaps the most Gothic decade ever: 'Dracula,' 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The Time Machine,' not to mention 'Heart of Darkness' and 'The Interpretation of Dreams,' were all written between 1890 and 1899.

The Victorian language of flowers began with the publication of 'Le Language des Fleurs,' written by Charlotte de Latour and printed in Paris in 1819. To create the book - which was a list of flowers and their meanings - de Latour gathered references to flower symbolism throughout poetry, ancient mythology, and even medicine.

It's head-scratching, really, that the most prominent Army base in America is named for Braxton Bragg. He was on the wrong side of history, as a Confederate general and a slave owner.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

When I wrote 'The Da Vinci Code,' I told myself that this story of Jesus makes more sense to me than the story I read in the Bible.

In its heyday, the blazer had come to symbolise a kind of conventional decency. Yacht club commodores and school bursars wore blazers. People who played bowls wore blazers.

When I was born, my parents and my mother's parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree I learned quite early, was exactly my age - was, in a sense, me.

I've got a statue of St. Francis in my front yard, and I'm not even a practicing Catholic.

I got 'Reign In Blood' for Easter one year - how ironic is that?

Images sometimes capture particular periods in history. The unreachable green light, beckoning from across the bay in 'The Great Gatsby,' has become a symbol of the yearning of America in the 1920s.

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.

The significance of the cherry blossom tree in Japanese culture goes back hundreds of years. In their country, the cherry blossom represents the fragility and the beauty of life. It's a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it is also tragically short.

Daggers have such beautiful, functional shapes, and decorating them is an ancient tradition.

The tradition has always been that in Roman films, the Romans are always British, and it's usually posh British: Laurence Olivier and his ilk. My take on all this was that it's a metaphor for empire and the end of empire.

I think where traditional values are concerned, Chinese people see nature as very symbolic. It's a form of culture.

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning.

Stuffed animals are sad and scary; they have humorous and tragic qualities.