actors between plays) like ghosts looking for bodies to inhabit -Gail Godwin Roth’s comparison of a mother to an unemployed queen comes from his novel, The Ghost Writer. (Fifty-two Sundays a year … for three hours my mother was) unemployed in her own house.Toiling like a bee in a hive -Noël Coward, lyrics for “World Weary”.Toiled like movers trying to get a refrigerator into a fifth-floor walk-up -Russell Baker.The only time some people work like a horse is when the boss rides them -Gabriel Heatter.Jobs are like lobster pots, harder to get out of them than into -Hugh Leonard.The job is like being pecked to death by ducks -John Roche, lecture at Ohio State University, 1962.This job needs gorgeous concentration … it’s like being a priest our work comes first -Clifford Odets.(My mom) getting paid for giving advice is like the Cookie Monster getting paid for eating cookies -Glenn Sapadin, upon hearing that his mother, Linda Sapadin, was finalist in contest to select a replacement for advice columnist Ann Landers, New York Times/ About New York, April 11, 1987.(Reagan’s nostalgic wit was contributing to the feeling that he) dropped in and out of his job, like a cameo star on “The Love Boat” -Gerald Gardner.A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed -Harry S. Being a president is like riding a tiger.
The back-breaking sixteen-hour day, like a heavy hand slapping -Bernard Malamud.All work is as seed sown it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew -Thomas Carlyle.