signals a comparison using the words "like" or "as"

Ogres are like onions.

They fought like cats and dogs

Bob is a couch potato.

Small fires raced through the forest.

gives human characteristics to nonhuman objects or entities

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.

The hair on my arms stood after the performance.

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!

She's going through a rollercoaster of emotions.

an imaginative comparison of two dissimilar things which can be implied or stated, brief or extended

The sign on the door insulted my intelligence.

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

This article says that spinach is good for you.

The bridge stretched over the interstate.

an address to an absent person, abstraction, or object; it makes a abstraction personal

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

To keep the peace, Alice steered away from confrontation

Hope is on the horizon.

Alarm clock, please don’t fail me.

artful deviations from literal speech or normal word order

He had little to live for now that his dreams were dead.

The Author to Her Book
"Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
who after birth did'st by my side remain,
till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
who thee abroad expos'd to public view."

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”