9. Trucks
It was a quaint little hamburger joint surrounded by a dozen or so idling semis, their great diesel lungs belting out a deep jazz riff through the horns of their smokestacks, exhaust caps flapping rhythmically like trumpet mutes. If one were so bold as to indulge in another truck metaphor, they could also be compared to a pack of dogs waiting patiently for their masters, their eighteen great rubber paws gripping the pavement, panting gouts of black diesel breath into the night sky.
I'm sure other metaphors are out there as well. For instance, the trucks are wagons around an encampment, waiting for the Indians to attack from the strip clubs. I guess the exhaust would be smoke signals. Maybe one of the pioneers knows how to make smoke signals, and he's asking for a truce, or maybe there's a double agent. Hey, there's another one! The trucks are whales, the smoke is the waterspout and the truckers . . . are Jonah . . . coming back from a strip club.
(Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert, Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not. Hyperion, 2003)
10. You
Today is about you--you who have worked so hard to pack your heads with learning until your skulls are all plump like--sausages of knowledge. It's an apt metaphor, don't question it.
(commencement address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, June 3, 2006)


