Figure Of Speech Quotes

You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech.
- Franklin P Jones

You must be Pain in the Nick." Dev
"Huh?" Nick
"Don't wet your pets. Just a figure of speech. Your mom's been talking about you all day, boy. You are her favorite topic." Dev
"Well, I try hard not to be her favorite hemorrhoid." Nick
- Sherrilyn Kenyon

Does it even give thee pause, that men used to have a soul--
not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth
that they knew, and acted upon! Verily it was another world
then...but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our
souls...we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse
in all ways shall befall us.
Thomas Carlyle
- Mary Ann Shaffer

Claire watched as Shane hunted around and came up with a small crowbar, which he used to lever open the seals on the top of the barrel. The top was hinged in the middle, Claire realized, and he flipped that part over. "Score," he said, and raised the crowbar in triumph. "Who's your daddy?"
Myrnin stared at him as if he'd gone completely mental. "Excuse me?"
"Figure of speech," Claire said hastily.
- Rachel Caine

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it's a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on.
- Mos Def

- 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 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.
- George Orwell

I'd heard Bones threaten to beat someone with their own limb before, but I'd always assumed that was a figure of speech. Apparently not.
- Jeaniene Frost

Bones didn't share any of my qualms about suddenly holding an arm that wasn't attached to a body anymore. He just grabbed the ghoul by his other arm and began thumping him over the head with the loose limb. I'd heard Bones threaten to beat someone with their own limb before, but I'd always assumed that was a figure of speech. Apparently not.
- Jeaniene Frost

It is Barack Obama who is at war with this country. Recent events prove it. This is not a cliche. It's not a figure of speech. Obama is at war with the U.S. economy.
- Rush Limbaugh

Well, anyway, this'll be easier than knocking an elf out of a tree. Trust me.'
'How many elves have you knocked out of trees, Stubble?'
'Duraden's bones! Have ye never heard of a figure of speech?
- Ian Livingstone

He lives for you, Laurel, and that's not some kind of figure of speech.He lives every day for you.Even after you moved to Crescent City,all he did every day was talk about you,worry about you, wonder what was happening, if he would ever see you again. And even what I told him I was sick of hearing about you, I could tell he was still thinking about you.Every moment of every day.
- Aprilynne Pike

He gave me a look of great contempt; as I supposed, for venturing, even by implication, to draw a parallel between a lack of affluence that might, literally, affect my purchase of rare vintages, and a figure of speech intended delicately to convey his own dire want for the bare necessities of life. He remained silent for several seconds, as if trying to make up his mind whether he could ever bring himself to speak to me again; and then said gruffly: 'I've got to go now.
- Anthony Powell

A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.
- Salman Rushdie

Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.
- Trevanian