Alliterative Quotes & Sayings

Old English poetry is characterised by a number of poetic tropes which enable a writer to describe things indirectly and which require a reader imaginatively to construct their meaning. The most widespread of these figurative descriptions are what are known as kennings. Kennings often occur in compounds: for example, hronrad (whale-road) or swanrad (swan- road) meaning 'the sea'; banhus (bone-house) meaning the 'human body'. Some kennings involve borrowing or inventing words; others appear to be chosen to meet the alliterative requirement of a poetic line, and as a result some kennings are difficult to decode, leading to disputes in critical interpretation. But kennings do allow more abstract concepts to be communicated by using more familiar words: for example, God is often described as moncynnes weard ('guardian of mankind'). — Ronald Carter

You learn about fight or flight, but no one ever mentions the third alliterative option - freeze. — Nina Malkin

When I was twenty-five, I went on exactly four dates with a much older guy whom I'll call Peter Parker. I'm calling him Peter Parker because the actual guy's name was also alliterative, and because, well, it's my book and I'll name a guy I dated after Spider-Man's alter ego if I want to. — Mindy Kaling

The author's alliterative description of politics since the 1960 presidential debates: "Government by Gotcha". — David Pietrusza

... if you really see a daisy, you see from here to infinity... — Deepak Chopra

Frank Miller is more of a visionary than any director I've ever worked with, and he achieves that vision better than anyone I've ever worked with. — Gabriel Macht

The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history. The extent of its influence has up to now been regarded far too little, although it has frequently been the determining factor in the shaping of the whole of economic and social life. — Rudolf Rocker

Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise. By not being wise you will become wise later. — Zhuangzi

I know that when you talk about something that may hurt someone, reactions are normal, and you are touching some nerves ... But I don't do things because people always like what I do. — Pierfrancesco Favino

Life with you was lovely - and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink 'v' in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering 'l.' Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too. — Vladimir Nabokov

Peter Piper
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
why couldn't he use his kick-ass alliterative skillz
to write Spoken Word poetry? — Beryl Dov

They were made of small hard things - aunts and uncles, smoke breaks after sex, girls on stoops drinking from mason jars. These truths carried the black body beyond slogans and gave it color and texture and thus reflected the spectrum I saw out on the Yard more than all of my alliterative talk of guns or revolutions or paeans to the lost dynasties of African antiquity. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. — Oscar Wilde

An alibi is one alliterative consonant short of being a magic carpet — Josh Stern

My mom once told me that my dad had given me an alliterative name, Wade Watts, because he thought it sounded like the secret identity of a superhero. Like Peter Parker or Clark Kent. — Ernest Cline

Perch Rory on their backs and they'd stand still for a second but by the time I'd backed up and gotten them in focus they'd turn around like, "What are you doing? Why is there a raccoon on my back? Why do they even let you be in charge of things?" and then they'd just flop over on their sides like a bunch of ingrates who didn't understand art. Rory would gently tumble onto the floor, which I suspect sent the cats mixed messages because he was still waving his hands in the air like he just didn't care, as if he were celebrating the cats being assholes, and I was like, "You're killin' me, Smalls," but then he just celebrated the fact that I was frustrated. Honestly, it is impossible to stay mad at that raccoon. — Jenny Lawson

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost. — Douglas Adams

Old English poetry also contained a wide range of conventional poetic diction, many of the words being created to allow alliterative patterns to be made. There are therefore numerous alternatives for key words like battle, warrior, horse, ship, the sea, prince, and so on. Some are decorative periphrases: a king can be a 'giver of rings' or a 'giver of treasure' (literally, a king was expected to provide his warriors with gifts after they had fought for him). — Ronald Carter

But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up. — Elizabeth Wein

The average citizen expresses pride in the American Bill of Rights and then seeks to protect his real estate by restrictive covenants. — Harry Allen Overstreet

If not for the rats you could crawl beneath a bush. A bush. A bench. The alliterative universe. Rats too can pass through that needle's eye to enter heaven ... This box held a refrigerator, the refrigerator is an apartment, a man is in the box ... Wake up on the grass, soaking wet. Dew is the piss of God. 'Another bullshit night in suck city, my father mutters. — Nick Flynn

My take on all these things is pretty simple. It's all on the table, every bit of it, and you should use anything that improves the quality of your wiring and doesn't get in the way of your story. If you like an alliterative phrases-the knights of nowhere battling the nabobs of nullity-by all means throw it in and see how it looks on paper. If it seems to work, it can stay. If it doesn't (and to me this one sounds pretty bad, like Spiro Agnew crossed with Robert Jordan), well that delete key is on your machine for a good reason. — Stephen King

And I have such a cold in the head - I can do nothing but sniffle, sigh and sneeze. Isn't that alliterative agony for you? — L.M. Montgomery

To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy — R.A. Salvatore

Where the hell has the fourth tower gone?!"
As far as heckles go, it was one of the more unusual he'd been subjected to. Lawrence had spent hours finding an alliterative rhyme for 'crumbling crenellations' - and what thanks did he get? An architecturally pedantic heckle. — Peter Knighton