See Also: MEMORY, NECESSITY

1. Brittle and meaningless as cocktail party patter —William Brammer
2. His influence … it is like burning a … candle at Dover to show light at Calais —Samuel Johnson

   Had Johnson been an American living in America instead of an Englishman living in England, his comment on Thomas Sheridan’s influence on English literature might well have illustrated with “A candle in New York to show light in Boston.”

3. Hollow as the (ghastly) amiabilities of a college reunion —Raymond M. Weaver
4. Impact [of information] … as thin as gold —Raymond Chandler
5. (About as) important as a game of golf to an astronomer —Anon
6. Important as mathematics to an engineer —Anon
7. Inconsequential … like the busy work that grade school teachers devise to keep children out of mischief —Ann Petry
8. Insignifacnt as the canals of Mars —Frank Conroy
9. Its loss would be incalculable … like losing the Mona Lisa —Dr. Paul Parks, New York Times, August 23, 1986 on potential death of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee
10. Meaningful as love —Kenneth Patchen
11. Meaningless, like publishing a book of your opinions with a vanity press —Scott Spencer
12. Of no more importance than a flea or a louse —Boris Pasternak

    In the novel, Doctor Zhivago, a character uses this simile to compare a wife to workers.

13. Seemed scarcely to concern us, like fairy tales or cautionary fables that are not to be taken literally or to heart —Joan Chase
14. Shallow as a pie pan —Anon
15. [A speech] shallow as time —Thomas Carlyle
16. Uneventful as theory —A. R. Ammons
17. Worthless as withered weeds —Emily Bronte