See Also: CONTINUITY

1. As assured of longevity as the statues on Easter Island —John W. Aldridge, New York Times Book Review, October 26, 1986.

   The work to which Aldridge ascribes the longevity of the Easter Island statues is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

2. (She was) as immutable as the hills. But not quite so green —Rudyard Kipling
3. Bonds … as immutable as a tribal code —Anon
4. Changeless as heaven —John Greenleaf Whittier
5. Changeless as truth —John Keats
6. Constant as the Northern Star —William Shakespeare
7. Enduring as a family feud —Anon
8. (A novelistic structure as harsh and) enduring as any tabby wall —John D. MacDonald
9. Enduring as mother love —Anon
10. Enduring as the Washington Monument —Anon
11. Enduring as the Constitution —Anon
12. Fixed as a habit or some darling sin —John Oldham
13. Fixed as a leopard’s spots —Anon
14. Fixed as a tiger’s stripes —Anon
15. Fixed as the cycle of life —Anon
16. Fixed as the days in the week —Anon
17. Fixed as the sun —Erasmus
18. (In two years he) had altered as little as the landscape —Ellen Glasgow
19. (My love of art seemed as) as indelible as ink —Jill Ciment
20. Invariable as a formula —Ellen Glasgow
21. Irrevocable as death —Charlotte Brontë
22. Lasts like iron —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
23. Like love we seldom keep —W. H. Auden
24. Of no more true substance than a scarecrow in a field —George Garrett
25. (The fine carnation of their skin is) perennial as sunlight —Herman Melville
26. Permanent as the bathroom fixture —Nora Johnson

    In Johnson’s novel, The World of Henry Orient, the comparative frame of reference is a woman whom the narrator of the novel likes and trusts.

27. Settled … like an oil stain —Charles Johnson
28. Unalterable as the little paper flowers permanently visible inside the lumpy glass paperweights —Ezra Pound
29. Unchanging as the nation’s flag —George Jean Nathan
30. (Ideas, though painfully acquired,) stick like nails in the best oak —Joyce Cary
31. (My bounded brain was as) unalterable as a ball —Jean Stafford
32. Binding as a wedding ring used to be —Elyse Sommer
33. Eternal as the sky —John Greenleaf Whittier
34. Eternity … like a great ring of pure and endless light —Henry Vaughan

    The simile is introduced with “I saw eternity the other night.”

35. [Eyes] imperishable as diamonds —Ellen du Pois Taylor
36. (Psychology) will live long as the pyramids —Delmore Schwartz