The Mechanics and Rhetoric of Conversation : Page 49

The tendency and ability to invent and use various comparisons and suggestions in place of the literal name of things is the mark of every really superior conversationalist, just as it is the stock-in-trade of every true writer. However, the successful use of this device is so much a matter of high imaginative talent that not many can be helped to shine in it, but everybody can learn to appreciate and encourage it. Just as good poetry is quoted by millions who do not write it, so a conversationalist may well use the apt figures he has heard or learned elsewhere, if only he is careful not to drool them into a groove. Those who cannot invent original expressions of this sort may be consoled to realize that they can be acceptable, if not brilliant, talkers, without them.