Quotes About Symbolism

But the marten laughed. And once again it sounded like an old woman's laughter. All stories end with me, Bluejay, Death said. You will find me everywhere.

was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed… . He wanted … to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls, and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

All words are written in the same ink, 'flower' and 'power', say, are much the same, and though I might write 'blood, blood, blood' all over the page the paper would not be stained nor would I bleed. Philippe Jacottet, 'Chant d'en bas

You see how good and evil are twisted together? Like a golden dragon bracelet snaking brightly about a person's arm.

don't blame myself for the broad general failures for which I am held responsible by my detractors. To others, I am a symbol; to myself, I have only ever been me.

And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from skies of doom.

There is only one tree, there is only one fruit, in your mouth.

where the moon was wrestling heroically to win free of the pack of clouds which hung on her like wolves on a white deer.

Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign?

This is the perennial danger which besets semiotics: what with man being preeminently the sign-using creature, and what with man using signs in everything that he does, semiotics runs the risk of being about everything and hence about nothing.

Cassirer asks the question, How can a sensory content become the vehicle of meaning?

It is difficult for gods to walk the earth without taking the forms of beasts.

But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead.

The language of nature is comparable to a secret password that each sentry passes to the next in his own language, but the meaning of the password is the sentry's language itself.

To read what was never written.' Such reading is the most ancient: reading before all languages, from the entrails, the stars, or dances. Later the mediating link of a new kind of reading, of runes and hieroglyphs, came into use.

Podría decirse que los proverbios son ruinas que están en el lugar de viejas historias, y donde, como la hiedra en la muralla, una moraleja trepa sobre un gesto

There is no event or thing in either animate or inanimate nature that does not in some way partake of language.

Ada byÅ'a twórcÄ… konceptualizacji komputera (...), maszyny, która by przechowywaÅ'a, manipulowaÅ'a, przetwarzaÅ'a, modyfikowaÅ'a wszystko, co da siÄ™ wyrazi? symbolicznie

poetry as a language within a language

To the British, Dunkirk symbolizes a generosity of spirit, a willingness to sacrifice for the common good. To Americans, it has come to mean Mrs. Miniver, little ships, The Snow Goose, escape by sea. To the French, it suggests bitter defeat; to the Germans, opportunity forever lost.

The word hear will gain a new significance, while write will fall into disuse. And really, what will writing become when no one can read? And what will the future generations think of writing? Like we think of hieroglyphics, no doubt.

Il tetro e monotono rumoreggiare dei flutti che venivano incessantemente a scagliarsi contro la riva rocciosa al di sotto, era per l'orecchio ciò che il paesaggio era per l'occhio: un simbolo di invariabile e monotona malinconia, non esente da un certo orrore.

During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented "a substitute" for "true patriotism." Bad move. Months later, Obama quietly beat a retreat and began wearing the flag on his lapel. He does so still.

I always say a kiss on the hand might feel very good, but a diamond tiara lasts forever.