Imagery Quotes

The merry-go-round was running, yes, but... It was running backward. The small calliope inside the carousel machinery rattle-snapped its nervous-stallion shivering drums, clashed its harvest-moon cymbals, toothed its castanets, and throatily choked and sobbed its reeds, whistles, and baroque flutes.

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .

Fantastic shadows of birds

Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.

It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud which shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that had been heated in a furnace, and were growing cold.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,Making fantastic arabesques,The shadows raced across the blind.

St. Paul'sLoomed like a bubble o'er the town.

The rich, sweet smell of the hayricks rose to his chamber window; the hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air: and the birds sang as if every sparkling drop were a fountain of inspiration to them.

Chopin--Two embalmers at work upon a minor poetthe scent of tuberosesAutumn rain.

Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room.

And suddenly the moon withdraws her sickle from the lightening skies, and to her sombre cavern flies, wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

The rockets set the bony meadows afire, turned rock to lava, turned wood to charcoal, transmuted water to steam, made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion, all about. The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke.

The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

The woman let out an expansive laugh that resounded through the house like a spray of broken glass.

A picture is poem without words.

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else.

Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals.

The quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fireGirdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

The jungle looked back at them with a vastness, a breathing moss-and-leaf silence, with a billion diamond and emerald insect eyes.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away.

The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers.

There was her face, like a summer peach, beautiful and warm, and the light of the candles reflected in her dark eyes. [He] held his breath. The entire world waited and held its breath.

It was a murky confusion — here and there blotted with a color like the color of the smoke from damp fuel — of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened.

Venice seemed incredibly lovely, elvishly lovely--to me like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Numenorean Ships, before the return of the Shadow.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.

The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss

Chrysanthemums from gilded argosyUnload their gaudy senseless merchandise.

When an idea is important to a person or culture it will find its way into imagery.

Down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandaled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.

The train skimmed on softly, slithering, black pennants fluttering, black confetti lost on its own sick-sweet candy wind, down the hill, with the two boys pursuing, the air was so cold they ate ice cream with each breath.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.

He describes it as a large apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions.

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory; and grasp the tail that like a monstrous asp coils round your heavy velvet paws.

People who walk across dark bridges, past saints, with dim, small lights. Clouds which move across gray skies past churches with towers darkened in the dusk. One who leans against granite railing gazing into the evening waters, His hands resting on old stones.