James Geary Quotes

You only really discover the strength of your spine when your back is against the wall.

A simile is just a metaphor with the scaffolding still up.

Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate and learn, discover and invent.

The mind revels in conjecture. Where information is lacking, it will gladly fill in the gaps.

By bringing together what we know and what we don't know through analogy, metaphorical thinking strikes the spark that ignites discovery.

London always reminds me of a brain. It is similarly convoluted and circuitous. A lot of cities, especially American ones like New York and Chicago, are laid out in straight lines. Like the circuits on computer chips, there are a lot of right angles in cities like this. But London is a glorious mess. It evolved from a score or so of distinct villages, that merged and meshed as their boundaries enlarged. As a result, London is a labyrinth, full of turnings and twistings just like a brain.

Heroism often results as a response to extreme events.

Aphorisms are literature's hand luggage. Light and compact, they fit easily into the overhead compartment of your brain.

Metaphors hide in plain sight, and their influence is largely unconscious. We should mind our metaphors, though, because metaphors make up our minds.

Metaphor impinges on everything, allowing us - poets and non-poets alike - to experience and think about the world in fluid, unusual ways.

Advice is given freely because so much of it is worthless.

Sometimes, you need a door slammed in your face before you can hear opportunity knock.

In the margin for error lies all our room for maneuver.

I believe aphorisms are best when first read in the wild, free from the confines of any categories.