The proprietor had hair so red that pigmentation had flowed out into every visible inch of his skin and even into the pinks of his eyes, as the colour of flowering cherry trees stains their leaves.

The distinction between indoors and outdoors, which in England is usually so marked, was temporarily suspended in a hot gauzy haze.

I never saw Portsmouth by day.

As someone remarked, when told the new atomic bombs would explode without a bang, 'they can't leave anything alone.'

The Duke's moustache was rising and falling like seaweed on an ebb-tide.

'..for the dead fish was striped like a cat and the sky was striped like the fish and the conch was whorled like an ear and the beach was ribbed like a dog's m…

An immensely tall, angular figure ... His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern jawe…