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

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

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

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

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

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

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.