“Everyone started to hunker down. They were busy with work, and some people had begun having families, too, so they stayed home with their kids on the weekend, which made sense. People evaporated, though only by about fifty percent: they still existed as texts and likes and shares. Like ghosts, showing up at a séance by way of knocking over your teacup.”
-Adrienne Celt
“Over time, many small infatuations rippled the surface of her mind, like the spring breeze that makes new leaves tremble without changing their life’s course.”
-Tove Ditlevsen
“So as long as it lasts, I want to write nearby Rodrigo Toscano, who pulls his Spanglish phonetic syllables apart like taffy (“tha’ vahnahnah go-een to keel joo”).”
-Cathy Park Hong
“it was the longest day of the year, and the Irish Sea had a metallic tint. The waves were tiny but insistent, like uncoöperative children.”
-D.T. Max
“Grief rattles about your mind like a loose pebble in a shoe.”
-Caleb Azumah Nelson
“The laughter came wrung out against my will like sugar, like sweat, like a whole child, like oil from a grape seed, an unlikely miracle.”
-Venita Blackburn
“Nora’s voice was annoyingly like Alison’s, precise and concerned, careful, like the handwriting on a get-well card.”
-Alexandra Kleeman
“For three decades, Murphy hemmed and hawed, insisted that the book was ‘about a third done,’ and failed to commit her grand theories to paper. Friends helped her make publishing connections, but Murphy blew past her delivery dates like a cyclone.”
-Rachel Syme
“Aleq sat with him, but Malik didn’t seem to see him. Food appeared on his lap and then was taken away. Aleq reminded him of the way, on bad-weather days, they used to tell each other that if they closed their eyes and opened them again, the sun would be back out.
Finally Malik moved his arms and opened his eyes. His head swayed like they were on a boat.”
-Jim Shepard
“But then there are those who wear their destinies like nooses, whose lives run straight as planks, however they try to twist.”
-Madeline Miller
The Simile Museum 