There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and women. There are phrases from literary works that have a positively human personality. There are passages from my own writing that chill me with fright, so distinctly do I feel them as people, so sharply outlined do they appear against the walls of my room, at night, in shadows.. I've written sentences whose sound, read out loud or silently (impossible to hide their sound), can only be of something that acquired absolute exteriority and a full-fledged soul. Fernando Pessoa
About This Quote

The idea of literary metaphors and literary images and what they represent is a concept that has been around for centuries, but after reading the words of T.S. Eliot, I have been fascinated by the idea of them being more real than most people. I have even had the experience of hearing a phrase from a book that felt as though it was spoken to me from outside myself. In my own writing, I have experienced passages about which I have said “there are people in here” – so much so, that they feel as though they are “outside” my writing, as though they are a part of me.

Source: The Book Of Disquiet

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