See Also: ARM(S), FINGERS, HAND MOVEMENTS, HANDSHAKE

1. Big hands like the claws of a crab —Guy De Maupassant
2. The bones in her narrow wrists were small as chicken bones —Mary Hedin
3. Closed they [hands] looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts —Sherwood Anderson
4. A craftsman’s hands … hands quick as cats —William H. Gass
5. Fist like a piece of iron —Raymond Chandler
6. Fists … as large as wastebaskets —Dashiell Hammett
7. Fists like knotty pine —George Garrett
8. Hand as wide as a stirrup —Richard Ford
9. Hand … dry, hard and cold, rather like a chicken’s foot —F. van Wyck Mason
10. His hand felt like the tentacles of a sea anemone —Kate Grenville
11. Hand … like a fine piece of ivory carving —Rebecca West
12. A hand like a side of meat —Douglas Adams
13. Hand … like a baseball catcher’s glove —Frank Ross
14. Hand like a boxing glove —T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. Hand like a bundle of taut wire —Oakley Hall
16. Hand like a ham —Stephen Vincent Benét
17. Hand … like a sharp, icy stake —Ariel Dorfman
18. Hand like a wood rasp —Raymond Chandler
19. Hand … limp as a tassel —Frank Swinnerton
20. Hand, quick as a bird claw —Eudora Welty
21. Hands … as soft as cotton-wool —Ivan Turgenev
22. Hands … cool, muted and frail with age like the smoothness of old yellow linen —Stephen Vincent Benét
23. Hands … crude and functional as if whittled out of hard wood —George Garrett
24. Hands folded like flower petals —Clare Boylan
25. Hands … gnarled, huge and misshapen, like chunks of wood hewn from a pale tree —James Stern
26. Hands gnarled, twisted and earth-stained like the vigorous roots of a tree —Ellen Glasgow
27. Hands, horny as a laborer’s —Harvey Swados
28. Hands hung like clusters of sausages —Louis Bromfield
29. Hands … large and too thin, like empty gloves —Margaret Laurence
30. Hands like asbestos —Mary Hedin
31. Hands..like blocks of wood and about as gentle —Leslie Thomas
32. Hands like bunches of bananas —Frank Swinnerton
33. Hands like coal shovels —Gerald Kersh
34. Hands … like dangling shovels —Jonathan Gash
35. Hands … like elephant’s ears —Arthur Baer
36. Hands … like great paws —Elizabeth Taylor
37. Hands like hard rubber —Helen Hudson
38. Hands like hunks of steak —Julia O’Faolain
39. Hands like lion’s feet —Arthur A. Cohen
40. Hands … like wings of butterflies —Hart Crane
41. Hands … looked like roots in earth —Ram Dass and Paul Gorman
42. Hand … soft, like worn silk —Jayne Anne Phillips

    See Also: SOFTNESS

43. Hands ridged like topography maps —Sharon Sheehe Stark
44. Hands … slender and smooth as though they had lifted nothing heavier than a knife to cut corners —Helen Hudson
45. Hands … soft from the [dish] water, like old gum erasers —Jean Thompson
46. Hands … steady as steel —H. E. Bates
47. Hands that felt … like a scrubwoman’s hands, red-knuckled and practical —Hortense Calisher
48. Hands that have thickened and calloused through the years so they look like tough paws —Louise Erdrich
49. Hands turned out flat, palms up, like a Balinese dancer —Leonard Michaels
50. Hands … which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats’ wings —Théophile Gautier
51. A hand that felt as though it was reaching for you from the grave —Harvey Swados
52. Hand that rested like a sparrow on the table —Tony Ardizzone
53. Hand … warm as a horn —Walker Percy
54. Hand … wet and cold as something fished out of a pond —T. Coraghessan Boyle
55. Her hands were stunning, like a sublime idea —Boris Pasternak
56. His hands … seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens —Stephen Crane
57. His wrists seemed to dangle from his cuffs as if they were sewn to the cloth —Jonathan Valin
58. Long hands, like pitchforks —Arabian Nights
59. An old man’s hand, hooked and grimy with a couple of nailless fingers, like a hand in a horror film —Jonathan Valin
60. Veins [beneath skin of hands] tessellated like a blue mosaic, shining like an intricate blue design captured beneath glass —William Styron
61. Wrists like steel whips —H. E. Bates