"As the three women stood there, taking leave of each other, the odour of the cheeses seemed to become more pestilential than ever. It was a cacophony of smells, ranging from the heavily oppressive odour of the Dutch cheeses and the Gruyeres to the alkaline pungency of the Olivets. From the Cantal, the Cheshire, and the goats’ milk cheeses there seemed to come a deep breath like the sound of a bassoon, amidst which the sharp, sudden whiffs of the Neufchatels, the Troyes, and the Mont d’Ors contributed short, detached notes. And then the different odours appeared to mingle one with another, the reek of the Limbourgs, the Port Saluts, the Geromes, the Marolles, the Livarots, and the Pont l’Eveques uniting in one general, overpowering stench sufficient to provoke asphyxia. And yet it almost seemed as though it were not the cheeses but the vile words of Madame Lecoeur and Mademoiselle Saget that diffused this awful odour."
— Emile Zola, The Fat and the Thin
"And then, as they drew breath, they inhaled the odour of the Camemberts, whose gamy scent had overpowered the less penetrating emanations of the Marolles and the Limbourgs, and spread around with remarkable power. Every now and then, however, a slight whiff, a flutelike note, came from the Parmesan, while the Bries contributed a soft, musty scent, the gentle, insipid sound, as it were, of damp tambourines. Next followed an overpowering refrain from the Livarots, and afterwards the Gerome, flavoured with aniseed, kept up the symphony with a high prolonged note, like that of a vocalist during a pause in the accompaniment."
— Emile Zola, The Fat and the Thin
"In these designs Claude detected the entire drama of human life, and he ended by classifying men into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other, and grows fat and sleek and enjoys itself. “Cain,” said he, “was certainly one of the Fat, and Abel one of the Thin. Ever since that first murder, there have been rampant appetites which have drained the life-blood of small eaters. It’s a continual preying of the stronger upon the weaker; each swallowing his neighbour, and then getting swallowed in his turn. Beware of the Fat, my friend."
— Emile Zola, The Fat and the Thin
"… “reality” is neither the the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average “reality” perceived by the communal eye."
— Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire (via gwyon)
(via sixladies)
"All were in a state of unrest and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone possessed the truth."
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment (via fuckyeahexistentialism)
I will never understand people who have unprotected sex.
A swinger who doesn’t use condoms won’t be a swinger for long.
"I felt there was something sacred in sex; in fact, it was the only sacred thing."
— Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs
"Only the poor are generous as a rule; the rich have always excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relation."
— Honore de Balzac, The Ball at Sceaux
Nabokov wrote Lolita about pedophilia so that you wouldn’t read it.
"The public school system…a 12 year sentence of mind control…destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority"
— Walter Karp (via liberatingreality)
(Source: loobylub, via 8398401)
It is more important to not do stupid things than it is to do smart things.
"Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them."
— W. Somerset Maugham, Moon and Sixpence
