See Also: DIFFICULTY

1. As slippery as an eel —Dutch proverb
   This has given rise to extensions such as, “Slippery as an eel dipped in butter” by F. van Wyck Mason.
2. (Love is) as slippery as greased pigskin —Delmore Schwartz See Also: LOVE
3. Avoided [another person] like a vampire avoids sunburn —Joseph Wambaugh
4. (He was) difficult as a serpent to see —D. H. Lawrence

   The elusive creature being described is a fox sliding along in deep grass.

5. (The feeling persisted, insidious and) difficult to trace as perfume —Harvey Swados
6. Elusive as a collar button —Jim Murray

   Murray, sports columnist for the Los Angeles Herald, applied this simile to football player Mike Garrett.

7. Elusive as a dream —William Diehl

   “Fugitive as dreams,” used by Tom Maclntyre in a short story Epithalamion, illustrates the possibility for change through word substitutions.

8. Elusive as a wet fish —Anon
9. Elusive as buried treasure —Anon
10. Elusive as the cure for cancer —Anon
11. Elusive as the cure for aging —Anon
12. Elusive as the source of a rumor —Anon
13. Elusiveness, like a thought that presents itself to consciousness and vanishes before it can be captured by words —W. Somerset Maugham
14. Evaded me, much like the myth of Tantalus —Marguerite Young
15. Evasion, like equivocation, comes generally from a cowardly or a deceiving spirit, or from both —Honore de Balzac
16. Hard to hold as a flapping sail in a raging wind —Gerald Kersh

    The hold to which Kersh alludes is the grip of one wrestler on another in the story entitled All the Terrible Turk.

17. Intangible as a beautiful thought —W. Somerset Maugham
18. Intangible as love and fear —Andre Dubus
19. (A vision swarming through the mind as sudden and) irretrievable as smoke —William Styron
20. It [information] got away from me so easily, like the tail of a kite, when the kite’s already out of your hands —Cornell Woolrich
21. It [trying to tie up a boxing opponent) was just like trying to hold onto a buzz-saw —Ernest Hemingway
22. Like fish in an aquarium, they [two girls] flashed in and out of sight —Frank Tuohy
23. Like sand from a clenched fist, he was slipping through her fingers —Ben Ames Williams
24. (She was so marvelous that, when he tried to think of her, her description) rolled away from him like a dropped coin —Mark Helprin
25. (She) seemed like a shadow within a shadow —D. H. Lawrence

    Lawrence is describing one of the two main female characters in The Fox, a woman the male character desires but doesn’t understand.

26. She was like a rubber ball; he couldn’t get a grip —Beryl Bainbridge
27. Slipped by like a mouse —Anton Chekhov
28. [Something said] slipped out of me like a cork from the deep —Reynolds Price
29. Slipped through [guards] like a fox through a barnyard —Clive Cussler
30. Slippery as shadows in day’s foam —Delmore Schwartz
31. They might as well be looking for a shoe in a swamp —Clive Cussler