Words of Praise

Words of Praise 

1. For you, words are like birds. They sing. They fly —Helen Hudson

   The character who thus praises a friend’s gift with words describes himself as someone for whom “Words are worms.”

2. (My wife … always) looks like a barrel full of Stardust —Moss Hart
3. My doll is as dainty as a sparrow —Oscar Hammerstein II, from lyric for South Pacific

   The lyric heaps simile upon simile with “Where she’s narrow, she’s as narrow as an arrow.”

4. My sister, my spouse, is a secret spring —John Hall Wheelock

   This is the first line and leitmotif of a poem entitled An Old Song.

5. She seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops —O. Henry
6. She shines against the backdrop of this provincial place like a jewel on a beggar’s coat. She is like the moon forgotten by the pale sky of the day. She is like a butterfly over a plain of snow —Milan Kundera
7. When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole —William Makepeace Thackeray
8. When she passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
9. When you came, you were like red wine and honey … now you are like morning bread, smooth and pleasant —Amy Lowell
10. When you get up, it’s like the flag being raised. I want to pledge allegiance —John Updike
11. You’re a girl like candy —Clifford Odets
12. You’re beautiful, like a May fly —Ernest Hemingway to Mary Welsh before she became Mrs. Hemingway
13. You’re perfect as a textbook example —Sharon Olds

    Poet Olds uses the simile in a poem dedicated to her father and aptly entitled The Ideal Father.

14. Your lips taste like paradise —Isaac Bashevis Singer