Thursday, April 28, 2011

Agreeable Associations

Henry David Thoreau, Journals (November 3, 1857):
I notice some old cow-droppings in a pasture, which are decidedly pink. Even these trivial objects awaken agreeable associations in my mind...

Monday, April 11, 2011

The Odour of Farts

Graham Greene, A Sort of Life (London: The Bodley Head, 1971), p. 78:
I cannot remember what particular item in the routine of a boarding-school roused this first act of rebellion—loneliness, the struggle of conflicting loyalties, the sense of continuous grime, of unlocked lavatory doors, the odour of farts (it was sexually a very pure house, there was no hint of homosexuality, but scatology was another matter, and I have disliked the lavatory joke from that age on).