See Also: RESERVE

1. Acting like an absentee landlord who was either unaware of or indifferent to the tenants smashing the windows or breaking up the furniture —Senator William S. Cohen commenting on President Ronald Reagan’s leadership during Iran-contra affair, New York Times, March 1, 1987
2. Alienated as Camus —Richard Ford
3. As far apart as the sound of waves on the shore —John Updike
4. (Fury) as unpersonal as disease —David Denby
5. Behaved like a dowager queen at a funeral, acknowledging everyone’s politenesses but keeping her own majestic feelings isolated —Judith Martin
6. Detached [from an excited crowd] as a droplet of oil —Stefan Zweig
7. Detached [mind from body] … like a kite whose string snaps on a windy day —Julia O’Faolain
8. Detached, passive, still as a golden lily in a lily-pond —Ellen Glasgow
9. Distant as an ocean —Reynolds Price
10. Distant as heart-parted lovers are —Babette Deutsch
11. (She was as silent and) distant as the moon —Kate Wheeler
12. Feeling impersonal and fragile as a piece of china waiting on a serving table —F. Scott Fitzgerald

    See Also: FRAGILITY

13. He speaks to me as if I were a public monument —Queen Victoria about her prime minister, Gladstone
14. Impassive as an apple —Laurie Colwin
15. Impassive as a tank —Seamus Heaney
16. Impersonal as a cyclone —Anon
17. Impersonal as the justice of God —Victor Hugo
18. Incurious as a stone —Robert Hass
19. (Until that minute she had been as) impersonal to me as a doll in a well-stocked toy department —R. V. Cassill

    See Also: SOCIABILITY

20. Indifferent as a blizzard —Anon
21. Like the hermit crab, he ventured out of his shell only on the rarest occasions —A. J. Cronin
22. Looked disinterested, like a customs inspector —Julia Whedon
23. A look of remoteness … like cathedrals, like long gleaming conference tables, like the crackling, hissing recordings of the voices of famous men long dead —John D. MacDonald

    An example to illustrate that several distinctly different similes can be effectively linked to a single reference base.

24. Look through ‘em all like windows —Edith Wharton
25. Otherworldly like a monk —F. Scott Fitzgerald
26. Personal as a letter addressed to ‘Occupant’ —Anon
27. (His father had always been) remote … as a figure in a pageant —Hortense Calisher
28. Remote as a nightmare —Walter De La Mare
29. [Sky scrapers] remote as castles in a fairy tale —Bobbie Ann Mason
30. (Bomb shelters are as) remote as the covered wagon —Edward R. Murrow broadcast from European front during World War II
31. Remote, unapproachable, like the expression of an animal that man has forced into sullen submission —Ellen Glasgow
32. Seemed like a perpetual visitor —Henry Van Dyke
33. (They get together and tell each other what women are like, but they never listen to find out.) Shut up in their heads like clams —Nancy Price
34. Stiff and remote, rather like a sleep-walker —Alice Munro
35. Stolid as ledgers —Julia O’Falain
36. (He sat there, heavy and massive, suddenly) sunk back into himself and his drunkenness, like a lonely hill of unassailable melancholy —Erich Maria Remarque

    See Also: BEARING

37. To ask Henrietta was like asking the door knob —Sholom Aleichem See Also: FUTILITY
38. As unreachable as all the landscapes beyond the limits of my eye —John Fowles

    See Also: IMPOSSIBILITY

39. (Face,) withdrawn as a castle —Nadine Gordimer