See Also: UNCERTAINTY

1. Finding paranoia in your heart is like discovering a lump in your breast —just knowing it’s there won’t make it go away —Jerry Bumpus
2. As confiding as a doe peeping between the tree trunks —Vita Sackville-West
3. As suspicious of me as Hamlet was of his mother —Daphne Merkin
4. Carried years of suspicion strapped to her hip like a gun —Ann Jasperson
5. Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint —The Holy Bible/Proverbs
6. Confidence (in their amorous destinies) like that of birds in their wings —William Faulkner
7. Confidence, like the soul, never returns, once it is gone —Publius Syrus
8. Doubt … secret and gnawing like a worm —Joseph Conrad
9. Doubts seemed to steam like wet flies inside his own head —Julia O’Faolain
10. Head … awhirl with doubts like a sky full of starlings —George Garrett
11. He was like a suspicion-caked old prospector —Ellery Queen
12. It [the thought that something was not right] was on the edge of her mind like a speck at the corner of your eye or fluff in your nostril —Julia O’Faolain
13. Lean on … like a man on crutches —Ross Macdonald
14. Mistrust swells like a prune —Marge Piercy
15. No more to be trusted (with news) than a cat with a saucer of milk —Christopher Isherwood
16. Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight —Francis Bacon
17. Suspicion developed like a muscle —F. Scott Fitzgerald
18. Suspicious … as a rat near strange bread —Patrick Kavanagh
19. Suspicious as a wild cat —Frank Swinnerton
20. Trust as I’d trust a rattlesnake —Anon
21. A trust, fierce and passionate, burning in her like a prayer —F. Scott Fitzgerald
22. Trust flourishes like a potato plant, mostly underground —Marge Piercy
23. As trusting to the future as a blind sky-diver —Richard Ford
24. Trust is like an egg and it’s not like an egg. If you want to break an egg you have to do it from the outside. The only way to break up a trust is from the inside —O. Henry
25. Trustworthy as advice given by a cat to a mouse —Anon

    A simile with clear links to an Arabic proverb: “He gives advice such as a cat gives to a mouse.”

26. Wearing doubt like a raincoat —Carlos Baker