“A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise.” — Chris Baty Copy Share Image
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. — George Orwell Copy Share Image
“His lips made a grim twist that was like the joyless cousin of a smile.” — Laini Talyor Copy Share Image
“Past love is as good as a past dream, intangible, impossible to share.” — Catherine Lacey Copy Share Image
“A friend... sort of. Ren watches me like I'm a cookie jar he wouldn't mind being caught with his hands in.” — Andrea Cremer Copy Share Image
“Lately, I couldn't remember those years, as if childhood was a movie I'd only seen the previews to.” — Catherine Lacey Copy Share Image
It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers. — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
“Sweating like a fat woman in a sauna, nun with a tattoo on her tit, overweight jockey.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
“Tourists hurried past them on the pedestrian-only street like chickens scampering to the feeder, cars scurrying through a tollgate, Niagara River rushing… — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
“You know, a cell phone's like a guy; if you don't plug him in every night, charge him good, you got nothing… — Catherine Coulter Copy Share Image
“The flesh of her butt jiggled like water-filled beach balls, oil drops dangling from a soupspoon, oversized Jell-O dessert cups.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
“Screamed like a manic cheerleader heaping encouragement on her high school’s punt returner as he breaks through the first wall of blocks.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
Human beings, you see, do absolutely two primary things. We see like and unlike. Like becomes, in literature, simile and metaphor. Unlike… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
Some people are like Slinkies.They aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to my face when I push… — Patricia Briggs Copy Share Image
“Gasps erupted from his nostrils like grouse from a thicket, schoolboys onto a recess yard, grease spatters from frying bacon.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like 'his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day,… — Terry Pratchett Copy Share Image
The poet, however, uses these two crude, primitive, archaic forms of thought (simile and metaphor) in the most uninhibited way, because his… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Every one is fond of comparing himself to something great and grandiose, as Louis XIV likened himself to the sun, and others… — Francois Magendie Copy Share Image
“The look on his face became like the tiny snapshot of a beloved that soldiers take with them to the battlefield, not… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
“His voice is muddy, that's what it is. Dark and brown and muddy. A note to it like coffee left too long… — Jael McHenry (The Kitchen Daughter Copy Share Image
“For a while this seemed to do the trick, and I felt that whatever contamination I had helped to spread, the boundaries… — Olivia Sudjic Copy Share Image
“I asked the boy who wept what it felt like, crystal meth, the prettiest name for a drug besides heroin. Crystal methamphetamine.… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
“But all of these hours were strained by fear, as if fear were a brooding specter, or a strange, lost bird trapped… — André Aciman Copy Share Image
And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand.… — Vikram Chandra Copy Share Image
When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your… — Edwidge Danticat Copy Share Image
“I am gifted at blending myself into any given milieu—you've never seen such a typical California teenager as I was, nor such… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Was she Minh Thuy, finally, or was she Jenny? But the time when there had been a meaningful difference between the two… — Garth Risk Hallberg Copy Share Image
Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is… — Charles Dickens Copy Share Image
Good similes depend upon close observation. They depend upon brevity and wit…They have to fit in context. — James J. Kilpatrick Copy Share Image
“Breathed like a contestant in a polka marathon, sit-up contest, stationary bike race.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
“Abandoned like an empty beer bottle, cigarette butt, worn-out shoe.” — Dennis Vickers Copy Share Image
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. — Jonathan Swift Copy Share Image
“Reading it was like subletting a small apartment in someone else's head.” — Garth Risk Hallberg Copy Share Image
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. — Terry Pratchett Copy Share Image
Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant. — Arundhati Roy Copy Share Image
“Your lies are like a silent fart. Can't see 'em, but I can smell 'em.” — Eric Jerome Dickey Copy Share Image
“Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far.” — Jodi Picoult Copy Share Image
