Smell Quotes

19 quotes

...wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden flowers, or aromatic balms, and of dark and fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad, and of aloes that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.

— That smell. I'll miss it.
— What, the shit house?
— Nah. I don't know what it is. Birmingham, I suppose. Small Heath. That smell.
— The smell brings it back.
— Where's John, do you think, Tom?
— Fuck knows.
— He's gone, though, like a hole behind your head.
— I thought you thought there was a heaven.
— No. More like hell for our John.
— Nah, neither one. He's just not here any more. It's like with Grace. Arthur... they're just gone. Just fucking gone.