Dive in, splash around, skim and dip and spout about the latest quotations, metaphors, words and, of course, triologisms. You’ll feel better for it!
Ink-blue water
As the logos on this website testify, I'm an ink-geek, and love inky similes. Here is another one, about the sky rather than the sea.  A small...
Fine feline quotes
Adding another in our series of themed selections, we have purrduced a page of illustrated quotations celebrating cats. We will add more as they...
Learning by heart
Listening time: 10 minutes. It's been playing on my mind, the fact that recently I haven't learned any new poems by heart. This led me to revisit a...
Canine collection of quotes
To celebrate man's best friend, what better than to give them their very own dedicated page on International Dog Day? Doglighted to bring you a...
A private anthology
Although this is a public domain website, it is also a 'private anthology', and wonderful will be the day when I have committed to memory more than...
Sailing away on a summer day
Having built up a treasury of thousand of quotations, we recently concluded we have enough magical material to begin presenting themed...
A quote to note
Drawing on thousands of sparkling, moving and inspiring quotations amassed during decades of attentive reading. To delight your mind and spirit and improve your presentations beyond belief.
Intimations of radiance
Listening time: 3 minutes.An intricate description of the effect an ancient temple can work on the spirit - a falling away of complication and...
The past as precious
The opening lines of a less well known novel, Mary Webb's engaging Precious Bane. Â She opens her foreword with a defence of the mute and invisible...
And I shall teach the boy
Listening time: under 4 minutes.The Countess of Gormenghast ponders her personal curriculum for her newborn son Titus, soon after despatching him to...
Meet the Barone
Listening time: under 4 minutes. Casting back across the sweep of history, there is only a handful of creatures, human and otherwise, whom I regret...
Metaphorically speaking
More marvelous metaphors on Mondays … Monday, metaphor day.
Mineral metaphor
Saint-Exupery takes your breath away with the originality of his metaphors. That peace is greater than the sum of its parts is one thing, but to...
As fabulous as …
A marvelously original simile for 'fabulous', found in this slim, exquisitely written book by Saint-Exupery. Something resonant in that phrase, the...
A dam snake
Infrastructure likened to a curling serpent, whereas most serpentine similes I've seen have been speed-related. See Tarka the Otter, Christopher...
As ancient as …
As a simile for 'ancient' you could use a range of places and races, but here the intoning of the prayer makes 'Jewish' particularly appropriate. ...
Triologisms
Bringing you pithy, evocative imagery in the form of three-legged microcosms of meaning. Updated on Tuesdays … Tuesday, triologism day!  You’ll never see this day of the week in the same way again.
Marrow-meltingly sweet
Wish you as many doses of such sweetness as you need. And what a stark contrast to another marrow-related triologism, from Jane Eyre. How sweet it...
Ink-blue water
As the logos on this website testify, I'm an ink-geek, and love inky similes. Here is another one, about the sky rather than the sea.  A small...
Hare-bell sea
A lyrical description of the Greek island of Thera, bursting with flowers and trees, and all sloping down to a soft lilac-tinged blue sea. But there...
Brandy-ball eyes
I like the 'brandy-ball' amber of this clever chap's gaze, and his space-butting arrangements. Enjoy another rather original description of a...
Bee-buzzing hours
Golding discovers ancient graffitti carved in the rocks of a Greek island, by long gone lovers. Wishing you, as we move into late summer, many...
Heart-drenching beauty
From Nicolson's superb book on Sissinghurst and his family's relationship with it, including its transition to more public ownership. He raises a...
Words
Sharing words that sparkle, appeal, intrigue or otherwise grab me, including in other languages. And adoring alliteration, words are added on Wednesdays… Wednesday, word day. See you back here then.
Lauzengier
Lauzengier (also 'lauzenger') appears in the songs of French troubadours. Â An old Occitan word but surely one which it may be timely to pluck from...
Gulch it down
Mervyn Peake uses Rabelaisian vocabulary to describe the gargantuan appetites and appearance of Swelter, the castle cook in his Gormenghast trilogy....
Mummarella
You would know the 'true' octopus if you saw it, wouldn't you? Reading a book about Mediterranean seafood, Luiz learned that according to an...
Ullage of sunflower
Something about this word that you can roll around the mouth like a good swig of wine or cognac, the removal of which would result in its ullage in...
Cragfast
Stuck?  In a tight corner? No going forward ... or back? Call yourself Cragfast. A sheep cornered on a crag, to starve in the absence of rescue....
Gummocks
This glorious word being no longer current, I invite you to revive it the next time someone does something daft or useless. Perhaps combine it...
I find it moving that no literary text is utterly original, no literary text is completely unique, that it stems from previous texts, built on quotations and misquotations, on the vocabularies fashioned by others and transformed through imagination and use. Writers must find consolation in the fact that there is no very first story and no last one. Our literature reaches further back than the beginnings of our memory permits us, and further into the future than our imagination allows us to conceive, but that must be the only barrier. Â
Source: Alberto Manguel, The City of Words, CBC Massey Lecture Series (Toronto: Anansi Press, 2007), p. 139
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