-He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience…like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without those boxes with a pinhole in it.

-She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

-She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before throwing up.

-Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

-He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

-The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

-The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

-McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

-From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

-Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

-Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

-They lived in a typical suburban neighbourhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

-John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

-The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

-The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

-She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

-He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

-The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

-He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

-It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

-The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

-I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here. --Stephen Bishop

-He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. --Winston Churchill

-A modest little person, with much to be modest about. --Winston Churchill

-I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

--Clarence Darrow

-He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary. --William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

-Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? --Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

-Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it. --Moses Hadas

-His ears made him look like a taxicab with both doors open. --Howard Hughes (about Clark Gable)

-He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others. --Samuel Johnson

-They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. --Thomas Brackett Reed

-Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it? --Mark Twain

-I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. --Mark Twain