# Great literary metaphors and similes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 30, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850 "2004-05-30T23:00:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850/1 "2004-05-30T23:00:31Z")

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In Ayn Rand’s _The Fountainhead_, there is a simile comparing something new or untarnished to (paraphrase, I don’t have the book handy) “coins that had not passed through many hands.” I thought this was probably the coolest phrase in the book.

_The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay_ (which I’m reading now, and highly recommend) has several excellent figures of speech:  
“The elegant black-and-white ship, all 24,170 tons of it, loomed like a mountain in a dinner jacket.”  
“…the magnificent steamboat of the Holland America Line on the arm of its proud tugboat escort, lofty, remote.” (More personification than metaphor, but still.)

So, what are some of the marvelous metaphors and sublime similes you’ve encountered in literature?

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**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850/2 "2004-05-31T15:09:58Z")

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Anybody? Anybody?

Bueller?

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850/3 "2004-05-31T15:29:20Z")

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William Golding, _Lord of the Flies_ (from memory so forgive any errors):

“The boys stood and ate beneath a thunderous sky of brass that rang with the stormcoming.”

Douglas Adams, describing the ‘Pan-galactic Gargleblaster’, said drinking it was the equivalent of being beaten about the head with a gold brick. He also bucked the metaphor beautifully in HHGTTG: “They hung in the air exactly the way bricks don’t.”

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850/4 "2004-05-31T15:33:15Z")

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And of course Shakey will always take the prize in metaphors (IMO):

> [@](#):
>
> …there’s no bottom, none,  
> In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,  
> Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up  
> The cistern of my lust…

_Macbeth_

> [@](#):
>
> What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither…

_Hamlet_

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-literary-metaphors-and-similes/247850/5 "2004-05-31T15:50:22Z")

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I always loved Douglas Adams’s, “They hung in the air in exactly the way that bricks don’t.”