See Also: DAY, DEATH, LIFE

1. About as much time left as an ice cube in a frying pan —William Diehl
2. Any decent church service lasts forty-five minutes, like the sex act —Heinrich Böll
3. As the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end —William Shakespeare
4. As the years go by me, my life keeps filling up with names like abandoned cemeteries —Yehuda Amichai
5. The day runs through me as water through a sieve —Samuel Butler
6. The days chase one another like kittens chasing their tails —H. L. Mencken
7. The days slipped by … like apple-parings under a knife —Stephen Vincent Benét
8. A decade falling like snow on top of another —Elizabeth Hardwick
9. Each class seemed endless to him, as if the hour were stuck to his back like his damp shirt —Helen Hudson
10. Each year is like a snake that swallows its tail —Robert Penn Warren

    This line is the curtain raiser for Warren’s poem, Paradigm.

11. Every day yawned like a week —Donald Seaman
12. Forty-five minutes passed, like a very slow cloud —Dylan Thomas
13. Here [at a country inn] time swings idly as a toy balloon —Phyllis McGinley
14. The hours weighed like centuries on his heart —Lawrence Durrell
15. If time seems to pass so quickly, this is because there are no landmarks. Like the moon when it is at its heights on the horizon —Albert Camus
16. The hours [with nothing to do] hunted him like a pack of bloodhounds —Edith Wharton
17. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose it withers on the stalk with languished head —John Milton
18. The lagging hours of the day went by like windless clouds over a tender sky —Percy Bysshe Shelley

    The word ‘over’ is spelled ‘o’er’ in the original.

19. Leisure is like a beautiful garment that will not do for constant wear —Anon
20. Life goes like the river —Clifford Odets
21. Like a run in a stocking. It [lost time] always got worse —Anne Morrow Lindbergh
22. Like January weather, the years will bite and smart —Dorothy Parker
23. Like sand poured in a careful measure from the hand, the weeks flowed down —Paule Marshall
24. Like the swell of some sweet tune, morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
25. Like the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end —William Shakespeare
26. The minutes crawl like last year’s flies —Ridgely Torrence
27. The minutes ticked off like separate eternities —Dan Wakefield
28. The moment hung in time like a miner’s hat on an oaken peg in a saloon abandoned ninety years ago —Loren D. Estleman
29. The moment shimmered like a glass of full-bodied wine —Marge Piercy
30. The moments [between two people] were stretching longer and longer, like so many rubber bands —Elizabeth Spencer
31. My days are consumed like smoke —The Holy Bible/Psalms
32. The passing years are like a mist sweeping up from the sea of time so that my memories acquire new aspects —W. Somerset Maugham
33. Saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade —Sylvia Plath
34. She was forever saving time, like bits of string —Helen Hudson
35. Slowly the generations pass, like sand through heaven’s blue hour-glass —Vachel Lindsay

    Lindsay used this simile as a repeated refrain for his poem Shantung.

36. The summer was melting away like the unfinished ice cream Sonny left on his plate —Dan Wakefield
37. That night and the next day swept past like the waters of a rapids —James Crumley
38. (Time seems thin, one-dimensional,) the hours long and slender, stretched like a wire —Dan Wakefield
39. There is a rhythm inside a year of time, like a great mainspring that keeps it ticking from spring to summer to fall to winter —Borden Deal
40. Time … a substance of some sort which existence burned up like a fire —Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
41. Time can be nibbled away as completely as a tray of canapés in an irresolute fat man’s reach, or grandly lost in victory like the great marlin in The Old Man and the Sea [by Hemingway] —Charles Poore
42. Time crawled like ants —Marge Piercy
43. Time crouched, like a great cat, motionless but for tail’s twitch —Robert Penn Warren
44. Time dripped like drops of blood —Yukio Mishima
45. Time drops sail like a ketch in a lagoon —Diane Ackerman
46. Time fled past us like a startled bird —James Crumley
47. Time flies … like an arrow —Amy Hempel
48. Time goes cooly through the funnel of his fingers … like water over stones —William H. Gass
49. Time has moved on like a great flock of geese —Stephen Minot
50. Time is a storm in which we are all lost —William Carlos Williams
51. Time is like an enterprising manager always bent on staging some new and surprising production, without knowing very well what it will be —George Santayana
52. Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and its current is strong. No sooner does anything appear than it is swept away and another comes in its place, and will be swept away too —Marcus Aurelius
53. Time is like money; the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go —Josh Billings
54. Time is like some balked monster, waiting outside the valley, to pounce on the slackers who have managed to evade him longer than they should —James Hilton
55. Time, like a flurry of wild rain, shall drift across the darkened pane —Charles G. D. Roberts
56. Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away —Isaac Watts
57. Time, like a pulse, shakes fierce through all the worlds —Dante Gabriel Rossetti
58. Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or … like a silent film in an ancient theatre, one hundred billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing —Ray Bradbury
59. Time moves … like a treacle —Hortense Calisher
60. Time passes as on a fast day —Anon
61. Time pleated like a fan —Julia O’Faolain
62. Time pulses from the afternoon like blood from a serious wound —Hilma Wolitzer
63. Time roared in his ears like wind —John Barth

    See Also: NOISE

64. Time roars in my ears like a river —Derek Walcott
65. Time rushes past us like the snowflake on the river —Gore Vidal
66. Time seemed to have slowed down, dividing itself into innumerable fractions, like Zeno’s space or marijuana hours —Ross Macdonald
67. Time … sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain —Ray Bradbury
68. Time sticking to her like cold grease —Marge Piercy
69. Time swells like a wave at a wall and bursts to eternity —George Barker
70. Time went on like an unchanging ribbon drawn across a turbulent background —Heinrich Boll
71. Upon his silver hairs, time, like a Panama hat, sits at a tilt and smiles —Karl Shapiro

    In his poem, Boy-Man, Shapiro expands on the simile as follows: “… and smiles. To him the world has just begun. And every city waiting to be built.”

72. The week is dealt out like a hand —Randall Jarrell
73. The week passed slowly … like a prolonged Sunday —Edith Wharton
74. When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. When he sits on a hot stove for a minute, then it’s longer than any hour —Albert Einstein
75. When you’re deeply absorbed in what you’re doing, time gives itself to you like a warm and willing lover —Brendan Francis
76. The years are crawling over him like wee red ants —Ogden Nash
77. The years come close around me like a crowd of the strangers I knew once —Randall Jarrell
78. The years dropped from Randstable [character in novel] like a heavy overcoat —James Morrow
79. The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God the herdsman goads them on behind —W. B. Yeats
80. The years peeled back like the skin of an onion, layer on top of layer —T. Coraghessan Boyle
81. The years rolled in against one another like a rush of water —Frieda Arkin
82. The years shall run like rabbits —W. H. Auden
83. The years ticked past like crabs —Randall Jarrell
84. Years which rushed over her like weathered leaves in a storm —Ellen Glasgow
85. A year that dragged like a terminal illness —Rosellen Brown

(See also DURATION, FREQUENCY, OPPORTUNENESS, TIMELINESS.)

before one had nails on one’s toes Before one was born; long ago, in the distant past. This expression refers to the fact that a baby’s toenails develop prenatally. Thus, an event or other matter that occurred before a person’s toenails developed occurred before he was born. In its most common usage, the expression cites a younger person’s age as the basis for denigrating his status, experience, ideals, or philosophies.

between dog and wolf Neither day nor night; dusk. The dog is a domesticated animal, and therefore associated with all that is civilized and ordered, such as the day. On the other hand, the wild and mysterious wolf is associated with the night, from the image of a wolf baying at the moon. Although they are of the same family, dogs and wolves are as different as day and night. And between dog and wolf, or day and night, is dusk.

blind man’s holiday Dusk; neither day nor night. This phrase, used as early as 1599, is said to refer to the time just before candles are lighted when it is too dark to work or read—a fitting time to rest, or “take a holiday.” However, this explanation does not account for the use of blind man in the phrase. Perhaps dusk is a holiday for a blind man because it offers him a brief respite from his aloneness. He has company because everyone is in the same state of semi-darkness until the candles are lit. In fact, being accustomed to the darkness, a blind man can enjoy an advantage. The phrase is rarely heard today.

D-day A deadline, the last hour, the moment of truth; a date established for any significant event, originally for a secret military operation. During World War II, the Allied invasion of Normandy was set for June 5, 1944. To avoid referring to the date, for security reasons, the code word D-day was adopted. Hostile weather conditions, however, forced the postponement of this famous D-day until the next day. The term is currently used in a similar way, especially in the academic world where students often refer to the due, date for the submission of work as D-day.

graveyard shift A work shift usually from twelve midnight until eight in the morning; any late-night shift; also the graveyard watch. Factories running 24 hours a day employ three shifts—day, swing, and midnight or. graveyard. The expression gained currency during World War II when so many factories were operating around-the-clock. The phrase, American slang and dating from the early part of this century, is an allusion to the late hour of the shift, which works in the dead of night when it is quiet and still as a graveyard.

zero hour Deadline; an anticipated stressful or critical period of time; the precise time established for the commencement of a military operation. This phrase originated and was widely used during World War I. It was for the most part replaced by the analogous term H-hour during World War II. As currently used, the expression often carries an implication of dread.