Figurative Language from Anthem and "By the Waters of Babylon"

“My knowledge made me happy --it was like a fire in my heart.”

“It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see.”

“The flame of the candle stands still in the air.”

“It has always given us wishes which mean may not wish.”

“It is forbidden to travel east. It is forbidden to cross the river. It is forbidden to go to the Place of the Gods.”

“If your dreams do not eat you up, you may be a great priest.”

“Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the clay of a dry river bed.”

“And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a shaft into a darkness without bottom.”

“There was the great river below, like a giant in the sun.”

“My magic did not help me at all and yet there was a fire in my bowels, a fire in my mind.”

“The current of the great river is very strong --it gripped my raft with its hands.”

“We knelt along the iron line to see where it would lead.”

“We are false in the faces of our brothers.”

“Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron.”

“We shall look for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others --the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses.”