A Quote by J. R. R. Tolkien

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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Allegory Always Author Confuse Detect Dislike Domination Done Enough Experience Freedom Grew History Many Much Old Other Prefer Presence Reader Readers Resides Since Think Thought True Varied Wary

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J. R. R. Tolkien
English - Writer
January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

J. R. R. Tolkien

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory and the need for a Savior is an allegory - but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine-it destroys the foundation of the gospel.

Ken Ham

I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.

J. R. R. Tolkien

A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is not an allegory.

George MacDonald

You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power.

J. R. R. Tolkien

I dislike allegory wherever I smell it.

J. R. R. Tolkien

If you look only as Genesis as an allegory, you have a major problem, because if it's an allegory, then tell me who our ancestor was? If Abraham was real, then from Abraham if Adam isn't real, if it's just an allegory, it's just a story, then what's the real Adam who really fell in a garden and really sinned? Where did we come from?

Ken Ham

The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story.

Tom Shippey

Once one is beyond a certain level of commitment to the sport, life begins to seem an allegory of rowing rather than rowing an allegory of life.

Stefan Kieszling

A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.

Albert Einstein

I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.

Lydia Davis

A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism. Even if you bog it down with political allegory, or even if you're doing celebrity allegory. You still need to take the cynical out of it.

Mark Waid

Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader.

Geoff Ryman

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

Naguib Mahfouz

Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.

Nicolas Chamfort

A Quote by J. R. R. Tolkien

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