See Also: COMMONPLACE

1. (The donors were as) anonymous as God —Herbert Gold
2. (Voice) as familiar as yesterday —Wallace Stegner
3. Everything reliable as the newly-wed suite in the Holiday Inn —Richard Ford

   The simile follows a description of a never-changing, always neat apartment in Ford’s novel, The Sportswriter.

   See Also: FURNITURE AND FURNISHINGS

4. Familiar as an old mistake —Edward Arlington Robinson
5. Familiar as a town clock —Anon
6. (She became as snugly) familiar as his own armpit —Julia O’Faolain
7. Familiar … as household words —William Shakespeare
8. Familiar as light or dark —Wallace Stegner
9. Familiar as luggage —Richard Ford
10. Familiar as one’s own front door —Anon
11. Familiar as one’s own face —Anon
12. Familiar as one’s own spice shelf —Anon
13. Familiar as the contents of one’s own broom closet —Anon
14. Familiar as the features of the President —Dorothea Straus
15. Familiar as the stars and stripes on the American flag —Anon
16. Familiar … as the streets of our native town —W. H. Hudson
17. Familiar as the voice of a favorite broadcaster —Anon
18. Familiar … as things are familiar in dreams, like the dreams of falling to one who has never climbed —William Faulkner
19. (The agony was as) familiar … as waking to life —Paul Theroux
20. Familiar as warts or some birthmark —Derek Walcott
21. Familiar like an old tale —William Shakespeare
22. He knows my face. He reads it like a farmer reads the sky —Marianne Hauser
23. Knew [her children’s natures] as accurately as a bugler knows the notes of réveillé —Ouida
24. Know him like a book —Charles F. Briggs

    A variation that’s become a popular daily expression is attributed to mystery writer, Margaret Millar, who used it in her novel, The Weight of the Evidence: “I know him like I know the back of my hand.”

25. Know it [Boston] as an old inhabitant of a Cheshire knows his cheese —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
26. Know … like a rabbit knows its warren —Frank Ross
27. (I got men that) know (these hills) like you know your wife’s geography —Ross Macdonald
28. (A voice as) recognizable as a train whistle —Scott Simon about sports broadcaster, Harry Caray, National Public Radio, May 2, 1987
29. Recognized (every little curve and shadow) as he would have recognized, after half a life-time, the details of a room he had played in as a child —Edith Wharton
30. Sounds, familiar, like the roar of trees and crack of branches —Robert Frost
31. Standardized as boilerplate paragraphs in a law office —Anon
32. Standardized, as if put together with interchangeable parts —Philip Langdon, The Atlantic, December, 1985

    In an article entitled “Burger Shakes,” Langdon used the simile to describe cities dotted with fast-food chains.

33. The stranger is like passing water in the drain —Margaret Laurence
34. Stylized as the annual report message to stockholders —Anon