40 Simile Quotes For Inspiration

Similes, those elegant figures of speech that compare one thing to another, have a unique way of adding depth and color to our language. These literary devices not only spark our imagination but also distill complex emotions into relatable imagery. In the following collection, we've gathered 40 of the most inspiring simile quotes that will ignite your creativity and provide a fresh perspective on everyday life. Whether you seek motivation, reflection, or simply a moment of beauty, these similes offer the perfect blend of insight and eloquence to enrich your day. Join us as we explore these vivid expressions and find inspiration in each nuanced comparison.

1. “He's like a drug for you, Bella.” - Stephenie Meyer

2. “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.” - Lemony Snicket

3. “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.” - Abraham Lincoln

4. “The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra

5. “I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you're depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you?” - Margaret Atwood

6. “Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.” - Terry Pratchett

7. “High School is like a spork: it's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end it's just plain useless.” - John Mayer

8. “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one but they think each others stink.” - Simone Elkeles

9. “Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.” - Emma Smith

10. “Life is like a box of Hand grenades,You never know what will blow you to kingdom come” - Mario Puzo

11. “Once again, you show all the sensitivity of a blunt axe.” - J.K. Rowling

12. “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

13. “Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid.” - John Green

14. “Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” - Carl Sandburg

15. “It was a smooth silvery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.” - Raymond Chandler

16. “Stress level: extreme. It's like she was a jar with the lid screwed on too tight, and inside the jar were pickles, angry pickles, and they were fermenting, and about to explode.” - Fiona Wood

17. “And then it hits me like a fast, open-palmed, stinging smack in the face.Having a ghost boyfriend WASweird” - Lisa Schroeder

18. “And my life went to pieces, like a love letter in the rain.” - Will Christopher Baer

19. “And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?” - Mervyn Peake

20. “Our house was like sleeping beauties palace after the enchanted spell is cast” - Karen Foxlee

21. “Telling someone about what a symbol means is like telling someone how music should make them feel.” - Dan Brown

22. “The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.” - Sarah Addison Allen

23. “Like a lamp, dispelling the darkness of ignorance” - Dalai Lama XIV

24. “A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” - Sophia Loren

25. “You're about as subtle as a fucking train wreck. On a boat.” - Doug Walker

26. “Where to start?Everything cracks and shakes,The air trembles with similes,No one world's better than another;the earth moans with metaphors.” - Osip Mandelstam

27. “.. a simile is not a lie, unless it is a bad simile.” - Mark Haddon (Author)

28. “Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch or you might simply get covered in sap and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors where it is harder to get a splinter.” - Lemony Snicket

29. “A good speech should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” - Winston S. Churchill

30. “His lips made a grim twist that was like the joyless cousin of a smile.” - Laini Talyor

31. “Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag.” - Chet Raymo

32. “His touch was like a bard's on his instrument, and it awakened a deep and mysterious music in my body.” - Juliet Marillier

33. “... Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing began, nothing resolved.” - Annie Proulx

34. “A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board.” - John Piper

35. “She smiled like knife on a velvet, she stretched like cat on the sun.” - Patrick Rothfuss

36. “Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.” - Elizabeth Wein

37. “Lugh's decided to stick with bein mad at me. It's like traveling with a storm cloud. One of them that hangs low an heavy. The kind that builds an broods an keeps on buildin an brood in till everybody's got a sick headache.” - Moira Young

38. “His nostrils flared, he was breathing like a picadored bull.” - Jerry Spinelli

39. “My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.” - David Foster Wallace

40. “Did you ever get the feeling that everything was too perfect? Like the moment was so good that something had to be wrong? Kind of like the way a fish sees that bright, shiny lure just before it chomps down and gets hauled out of water to become someone's lunch.” - Neal Shusterman