A Porn Star's Testicle

“The crocuses were like bells and the Siberian violets like grape candies scattered in the grass."

"The wayward hand of the larger forces in baseball can act like a toddler’s first dance with a crayon."

"The woman was so etiolated by Bikram yoga that she looked like gristle.”

"My scalp tingled like Christmas candy on a cold tongue.”

"Tweet wars are incredibly depressing. It’s like battling by throwing one frozen pea at a time."

"Words are like little kids; you don’t want to send them out of the house until they’re dressed and have brushed their teeth."

"Simile and metaphor are like plastic explosives. You’ve got to handle them carefully."

"Clouds white as angel’s panties could be glimpsed through the tops of the tall pines and oaks that made up most of our two acres."

"The scrub brush and trees diminished above us and the light from the house was stronger than the bad moonlight and it fell down into the ravine like tainted butter."

"I’ll break you in half like a little boy.”

"Most of the writing about Iraq and Afghanistan is terrible. Standing out from the pack is like being the best looking double-amputee in the burn ward at Fort Sam Houston." 

"I took to Roethke immediately. His poetry is easy to walk into and easy to linger in. He's not afraid to rhyme and, even when he doesn't rhyme, he keeps a rhythm that drives his words forward like dozens of tiny kites in the wind."

"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been

red if the smoke and ashes allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam- engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness."

"Here’s what I learned: First thing in the morning, before I have drowned myself in coffee, while I still have that sleepy brain I used to believe was useless — that is the best brain for creative writing. Words come pouring out easily while my head still feels as if it is full of ground fog, wrapped in flannel and gauze, and surrounded by a hive of humming, velvety sleep bees."

"Publishers tend to dislike me. Dunno why. I always thought I was rather lovable. Like a fat, loudmouth Muppet who drinks."

"With its vaulted atrium, marble flooring, and wood-panelled shelving units, Rizzoli looked like the private library of a Medici prince, the sort of place where an Umberto Eco character would hunt down an ancient secret."

"if a soap opera is opera in drag, V.C. Andrews is a drag queen, holding a scented hanky to her heaving bosom, standing in front of an Elvis preacher at a Las Vegas chapel on New Years Eve."