在文学、音乐和流行文化中，爱经常被用作一种隐喻、比喻或修辞格，在这种比喻或修辞格中，两种不同的事物实际上有一些共同之处，它们之间进行了隐含的比较。例如，当尼尔·杨演唱“爱是一朵玫瑰”时，“玫瑰”一词是男高音“爱”一词的载体。

或者正如米兰·昆德拉在《存在的不可忍受的轻》中所写

"I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor."

他可能会补充说，爱情有时也以隐喻结束。就像爱本身的体验一样，隐喻也会产生联系。因此，正如下面的引文所示，人们通过各种各样的比喻来想象、检验和记忆爱情，这并不奇怪。

爱是水果还是植物

正如本节和以下章节所收集的段落所展示的，爱被比作从工厂到卡车的一切。本系列中的隐喻绝非传统。

"Love is a fruit, in season at all times and within the reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set." – Mother Teresa, "No Greater Love" "I look at you and wham, I'm head over heels. I guess that love is a banana peel. I feel so bad and yet I'm feeling so well. I slipped, I stumbled, I fell" – Ben Weisman and Fred Wise, "I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell," sung by Elvis Presley in the film "Wild in the Country" "Love is a spice with many tastes—a dizzying array of textures and moments." – Wayne Knight as Newman in the final episode of "Seinfeld" "Now that you're gone I can see That love is a garden if you let it go. It fades away before you know, And love is a garden—it needs help to grow. – Jewel and Shaye Smith, "Love Is a Garden" "Love is a plant of the most tender kind, That shrinks and shakes with every ruffling wind" – George Granville, "The British Enchanters"

作为一种自然现象

华盛顿·欧文将爱情比作“生命之晨的彩霞”，但正如本节引文所示，许多人将爱情比作从闪电到星星和火的各种自然现象。

"Oh, love is a journey with water and stars, with drowning air and storms of flour; love is a clash of lightnings, two bodies subdued by one honey." – Pablo Neruda, "Sonnet 12" "[Love] is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken." – William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116" "Love is a fire. It burns everyone. It disfigures everyone. It is the world's excuse for being ugly." – Leonard Cohen, "The Energy of Slaves" "Love's fire, if it once goes out, is hard to kindle." – German proverb

动物

库尔特·冯内古特（Kurt Vonnegut）称爱情为“长着天鹅绒爪子的鹰”，但许多歌手、作家、作家和流行文化中的人物都将爱情比作各种动物，包括狗、鸟，甚至鳄鱼。

"Love is a dog from hell." – Charles Bukowski, "Love Is a Dog From Hell" "Love's wing moults when caged and captured, Only free he soars enraptured." – Thomas Campbell, "Love's Philosophy" Love is a crocodile in the river of desire. – Bhartṛhari, "Śatakatraya" "Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull." – H.L. Mencken, "A Little Book in C Major"

甚至是一种疾病

爱情被比作很多东西，但令人惊讶的是，有些人把它比作一种疾病，正如最后一节中的折衷引语所示。

"They say it is better to travel than to arrive. It's not been my experience, at least. The journey of love has been rather a lacerating, if well-worth-it, journey." – D.H. Lawrence, "Fantasia of the Unconscious" "Love is a truck and an open road, Somewhere to start and a place to go." – Mojave 3, "Truck Driving Man" "They say love is a two-way street. But I don't believe it, because the one I've been on for the last two years was a dirt road." – Terry McMillan, "Waiting to Exhale" "Love is the master key that unlocks the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and most easily of all, the gate of fear." – Oliver Wendell Holmes, "A Moral Antipathy" "Love is a beggar, most importunate, Uncalled he comes and makes his dear demands" – Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, "Love Is a Beggar" "I thought love would be my cure But now it's my disease." – Alicia Keyes, "Love Is My Disease" "Is it natural for a man to fall in love? Love is a disease and disease knows no laws. – Ivan Turgenev, "Diary of a Superfluous Man"