Simile Quotes - Page 3

• He'd felt like a jack-o-lantern for the past few days, as if his guts had been yanked out with a fork and dumped in a heap while a grinning smile stayed plastered on his face.

  Cassandra Clare

  Past, Jack O Lanterns, Faces

  Cassandra Clare (2009). “City of Ashes”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

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• Today was a very cold and bitter day, as cold and bitter as a cup of hot chocolate, if the cup of hot chocolate had vinegar added to it and were placed in a refrigerator for several hours.

  Daniel Handler

  Chocolate, Hot, Today

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• The sun rose like a stripper, keeping its glory well covered by cloud till it seemed there'd be no show at all.

  Clive Barker

  Clouds, Rose, Sun

  Clive Barker (2001). “Cabal”, p.109, Simon and Schuster

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• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Thinking, Passive Voice

  George Orwell (1953). “Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays”

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• Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one but they think each others stink.

  Simone Elkeles

  Thinking, Opinion, Stink

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• It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.

  Neil Gaiman

  Wall, Nails, Pieces

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• A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it.... That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode.

  Samuel Johnson

  Views, Perfect, Understanding

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.226

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• London opens to you like a novel itself. [...] It is divided into chapters, the chapters into scenes, the scenes into sentences; it opens to you like a series of rooms, door, passsage, door. Mayfair to Piccadilly to Soho to the Strand.

  Anna Quindlen

  Doors, Soho, London

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• and her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.

  Madeline Miller

  Moon, Light, Skins

  Madeline Miller (2011). “The Song of Achilles”, p.58, A&C Black

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• God has neither form nor shape under which we can know Him; when he speaks of Himself in metaphors and similes, He is adapting Himself to our foolishness, our limited capacity.

  Christina, Queen of Sweden

  Shapes, Speak, Metaphor

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• A broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think THAT a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Broken Heart, Dream, Real

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “ANNE SHIRLEY Complete Series - ALL 14 Books in One Volume: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Rainbow Valley, The Story Girl, Chronicles of Avonlea and more: Including the Memoirs & Letters of Lucy Maud Montgomery”, p.400, e-artnow

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• Good similes depend upon close observation. They depend upon brevity and wit....They have to fit in context.

  James J. Kilpatrick

  Fit, Wit, Observation

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• I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.

  Raymond Chandler

  Onions, Splits, Pearls

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Long Goodbye: A Novel”, p.92, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• And an inky-colored despair of rejection enveloped me like the black tortilla of depression around a pain burrito.

  Christopher Moore

  Pain, Rejection, Black

  Christopher Moore (2010). “Bite Me”, p.83, Hachette UK

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• Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy.

  Giannina Braschi

  Envy, Metaphor, Democratic

  "United States of Banana". Book by Giannina Braschi, 2011.

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• When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write that a gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or wolf appeared. You will bring life to nature only if you don't shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind.

  Anton Chekhov

  Dog, Writing, Eye

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• I'll buy metaphor, but simile's a cop-out used by scaredycats who won't commit to anything. Simile's for cowards.

  Alan Garner

  Coward, Cop, Metaphor

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• When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Writing, Light, Hair

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• Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.

  Roberto Bolano

  Law, Doe, Gestures

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• You see, it's really quite simple. A simile is just a mode of comparison employing 'as' and 'like' to reveal the hidden character or essence of whatever we want to describe, and through the use of fancy, association, contrast, extension, or imagination, to enlarge our understanding or perception of human experience and observation.

  Norton Juster

  Character, Simple, Essence

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• Every one is fond of comparing himself to something great and grandiose, as Louis XIV likened himself to the sun, and others have had like similes. I am more humble. I am a mere street scavenger (chiffonier) of science. With my hook in my hand and my basket on my back, I go about the streets of science, collecting what I find.

  Francois Magendie

  Humble, Humility, Science

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• Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.

  Daniel Handler

  I Hate You, Humor, Fate

  "The Slippery Slope". Book by Daniel Handler, 2003.

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• O, my luve is like a red, red rose.

  Robert Burns

  Love, Sprung Up, Rose

  'A Red Red Rose' (1796) (derived from various folk-songs)

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• My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Eye, Mistress

  Sonnet 130

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• He's like a drug for you, Bella.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Romantic Love, Romance, Drug

  Stephenie Meyer (2008). “Eclipse”, Little Brown & Company

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