Simile: A simile, like a metaphor, makes comparisons by using the words “like” or “as” to introduce the thing the subject is compared to. Like metaphors, similes also are powerful because they connect your case theory with something with which the jurors are familiar.
Here’s a collection of similes, some of them compiled by Paul Luvera, one of the nation’s leading trial lawyers:
Anonymous: Someone said he is like the rooster who thinks the sun comes up to hear him crow.
Frederic Rahael: Awards are like hemorrhoids; in the end, every asshole gets one.
Irving stone about William Jennings Bryan: His mind was like a soup dish, wide and shallow; it could hold a small amount of nearly everything, but the slightest jarring spilled the soup.
Muriel Spark: Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and dying as on a battlefield.
Pope John 23rd: Men are like wine; some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.
Thornton Wilder: I do borrow from other writers, shamelessly! I can only say in my defense, as the woman before the judge who was arrested for shoplifting and defended herself by saying: “I do steal, but your honor, only from the very best stores.”
Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) in Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1917) listed Striking Similes in alphabetical order and you can visit it online here.
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