100 OXYMORONS

• absent presence
  ^{(from "Astrophil and Stella" by Sir Philip Sidney)}
• alone together
• awful good
• beggarly riches
  ^{(from "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions" by John Donne)}
• bittersweet
• "brisk vacancy"
  ^{(from "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror" by John Ashbery)}
• cheerful pessimist
• civil war
• clearly misunderstood
• comfortable misery
  ^{(from "One Door Away From Heaven" by Dean Koontz)}
• conspicuous absence
• cool passion
• crash landing
• cruel kindness
• darkness visible
  ^{(from "Paradise Lost" by John Milton)}
• deafening silence
• deceptively honest
• definite maybe
• deliberate speed
• devout atheist
• dull roar
• eloquent silence
• even odds
• exact estimate
• extinct life
• falsely true
  ^{(from "Lancelot and Elaine" by Lord Tennyson)}
• festive tranquility
• found missing
• freezer burn
• friendly takeover
• genuine imitation
• good grief
• growing smaller
• guest host
• historical present
• humane slaughter
• icy hot
• idiot savant
• ill health
• impossible solution
• intense apathy
• joyful sadness
• jumbo shrimp

• larger half
• lascivious grace
  ^{(from Sonnet 40 by William Shakespeare)}
• lead balloon
• liquid marble
  ^{(from "Poetaster" by Ben Jonson)}
• living dead
• living end
• living sacrifices
• loosely sealed
• loud whisper
• loyal opposition
• magic realism
• melancholy merriment
  ^{( from "Don Juan" by Lord Byron)}
• militant pacifist
• minor miracle
• negative growth
• negative income
• old news
• one-man band
• only choice
• openly deceptive
• open secret
• original copy
• overbearingly modest
• paper tablecloth
• paper towel
• peaceful conquest
• plastic glasses
• plastic silverware
• poor health
• pretty ugly
• properly ridiculous
• random order
• recorded live
• resident alien
• sad smile
• same difference
• scalding coolness
  ^{(from "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway)}
• seriously funny
• shrewd dumbness
• silent scream
• small crowd
• soft rock
• "The Sound of Silence"
  ^{(song by Paul Simon)}
• static flow
• steel wool
• student teacher

• "sweet sorrow"
  ^{(from "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare)}
• terribly good
• theoretical experience
• transparent night
  ^{(from "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman)}
• true fiction
• "True Lies"
  ^{(movie directed by James Cameron)}
• unbiased opinion
• unconscious awareness
• upward fall
• wise fool
• working vacation