Toilet Quotes & Sayings

Each civilization may choose one of two roads to travel, that is, either fret itself to death, or pet itself to death. And in the course of doing one or the other, it eats its way into the Universe, turning cinders and flinders of stars into toilet seats, pegs, gears, cigarette holders and pillowcases, and it does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks to change that Fathomlessness into Something Fathomable. — Stanislaw Lem

I don't know if he needs a tic tac or toilet paper. — Jerry Lawler

I rushed to the bathroom for every corner of the hospital was suffocating. I got hold of acid-bottle, which was meant for toilet cleaning. As I took it into my hands, I realized I had more filth inside me than a toilet. A toilet could be cleaned by an acid bottle, or a toilet cleaner, but there was no such product that could cleanse a criminal from inside. I felt so ashamed of myself that I couldn't even look into the eyes of my reflection in the mirror on the wall. — Mehek Bassi

Having Aelin help him the first time had been awkward enough that he couldn't even go until she started singing a bawdy tune at the top of her lungs and turned on the sink faucet, all the while helping him stand over the toilet. — Sarah J. Maas

Zen is to religion what a Japanese "rock garden" is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks "What is Zen?", the master's traditional answer is "Three pounds of flax" or "A decaying noodle" or "A toilet stick" or a whack on the pupil's head. — Arthur Koestler

Bad writing is not easier than good writing. It's just as hard to make a toilet seat as it is a castle window. Only the view is different. — Ben Hecht

Having made his clerical toilet with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat of the period, and to a mind weighted with unpublished matter. — George Eliot

My robust lexicon notwithstanding, I struggle to find the right words to describe just how much I despise, hate, abhor, revile, detest and categorically abominate anything to do with home maintenance. While cooking strikes me as an essentially creative act, cleaning seems little more than an exercise in decay management, enough to trigger an existential crisis each time the ring around the toilet bowl reappears. — Rachel Held Evans

A toilet flushes, and everyone turns to see Jax emerge from the downstairs bathroom holding a Victoria's Secret catalogue and chewing on a Red Vine. "Yo, what up," he says, oblivious. As he looks from one face to the next he stops chewing. He swallows hard. "Everything okay?" "No," I say. — Rachel A. Marks

I didn't go to high school. I think that after you learn to read and write and do your numbers and flush the toilet behind yourself, you don't need no more schoolin'. You need to get out in the water and swim. — Wilford Brimley

The train resembles the Soviet type and is quite comfortable, but all socialist structures I have ever encountered have toilets stemming from a single model engineered by the Orthodox Church in Tsarist Russia to ensure that man never be allowed to forget the corruption of the flesh. — Arthur Miller

Mujo is a refugee in Germany, has no job, but has a lot of time, so he goes to a Turkish bath. The bath is full of German businessmen with towels around their waists, huffing and puffing, but every once in a while a cell phone rings and they pull their phone out from under the towel and say, Bitte? Mujo seems to be the only one without a cell phone, so he goes to the bathroom and stuffs toilet paper up his butt. He walks back out, a long trail of toilet paper behind him. So a German says, you have some paper, Herr, sticking out behind you. Oh, Mujo says, it looks like I have received a fax. — Aleksandar Hemon

He did have to flush the toilet though, since I hadn't gotten to that yet. I had only peed, otherwise I might have been mortified. Best friend or not, shit was still shit. — Scarlett Dawn

Most public bathrooms now have automatic toilet sensors. People can't even be trusted to flush. — Dov Davidoff

When you go to jail, there's so much simple stuff missing. You just want some good toilet paper or a real toothbrush, a real blanket and a real bed to lay in. — Ja Rule

The officious swagger in her gait might have been some flavor of self-possession or the cool skedaddle of a shoplifter making for the door. In either case, the streamer of toilet paper that trailed from the waistband of her tiny skirt like the banner of an advertising airplane pretty much spoiled the effect. — Michael Chabon

Timmy, who made a daring escape, also made a mistake of paying the taxi driver with a check made out of toilet paper. — Janet Frame

And of course, when you see your brother in the toilet bowl ... there's a little voice that say, 'I wonder where he would go ... ' ... if it hadn't been for his head ... — Bill Cosby

Carter pulled out several lengths of brown twine, a small ebony cat statue, and a thick roll of paper. No, not paper. Papyrus. I remember Dad explaining how the Egyptians made it from a river plant because they never invented paper. The stuff was so thick and rough, it made me wonder if the poor Egyptians had had to use toilet papyrus. If so, no wonder they walked sideways. — Rick Riordan

Thanks for staying with me last night," I said, stroking Toto's soft fur. "You didn't have to sleep on the bathroom floor."
"Last night was one of the best nights of my life."
I turned to see his expression. When I saw that he was serious, I shot him a dubious look. "Sleeping in between the toilet and the tub on a cold, hard tile floor with a vomiting idiot was one of your best nights? That's sad, Trav."
"No, sitting up with you when you're sick, and you falling asleep in my lap was one of my best nights. It wasn't comfortable, I didn't sleep worth a shit, but I brought in your nineteenth birthday with you, and you're actually pretty sweet when you're drunk."
"I'm sure between the heaving and purging I was very charming."
He pulled me close, patting Toto who was snuggled up to my neck. "You're the only woman I know that still looks incredible with your head in the toilet. That's saying something. — Jamie McGuire

If loyalty was toilet paper ... we'd be hard-pressed to wipe our asses, old buddy. — Stephen King

People say there's delays on flights. Delays, really? New York to California in five hours, that used to take 30 years, a bunch of people used to die on the way there, have a baby, you would end up with a whole different group of people by the time you got there. Now you watch a movie and [go to the toilet] and you're home. — Louis C.K.

All of a sudden, life became too much to bear. Just like that, for no particular reason. Because there was a child's corpse in the fridge on rue Parthenais. Because I had to start all over again from scratch, one more time. Because I had rolled my rock to the top of the hill and now it was rolling back down again. The times before, I'd always managed to put on a brave face. But there comes a time when you just don't feel strong enough to look for another place to live and go shopping again for clothes and dishes and cutlery and scouring pads and toilet paper. This was one of those times. When I got back to the hotel, I asked the Barbie at reception for the key to the minibar. It burned in the palm of my hand. I slapped it back down on the counter and ran out. I had to find a meeting. — Bernard Emond

A hygienic environment, proper waste and sewer disposal, clean water and all efforts that destroy disease-carriers like flies and mosquitoes will reduce the spread of disease and promote good health. My home challenge for a hygienic environment is that we should be responsible enough to make sure we are safe and comfortable eating apples in the toilet and bathroom! — Archibald Marwizi

Just don't ever let it happen to you, Dolores. Let people just shit all over you. Don't you ever become some man's personal toilet that way I did. — Wally Lamb

I'm a little thirsty, can I go drink out of your toilet? — Mark McKinney

You know it's the 21st Century when someone TEXTS you from the washroom to ask you to bring them a roll of toilet paper. — Tanya Masse

The question was, "Is your sexuality constructed by environment and experience, or is it innate?" I examined this issue by wanking off a man in a toilet. In conclusion, your sexuality is innate. — Anonymous

Issie?"
After a second her voice comes out small and tired. "I'm not here."
"Oh." I back up so I can stare at the bathroom door. No feet. "Then I should probably freak out because the toilet is talking back to me, huh? A little too many pain meds for Zara today. — Carrie Jones

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one. When nature finally calls, they have no idea where to go and are in a mess. — Ajahn Chah

Tiff like in Breakfast at Tiffany's,' he says. 'Right?'
I couldn't be more shocked. 'Um ... yes, that's right - it's an old movie.'
'Is it? Don't watch that much TV. I've only heard of the book - got it at home. I bought it 'cause Truman Capote wrote it. I was stoked by In Cold Blood. He wrote that, too. You read it?'
'No.'
'Aw, you gotta. It rocks.'
I look away as if I've been suddenly distracted by something out the window. It's my version of the pause button. There's a lot of information to process. Here's a boy my own age; he shakes my hand, he talks to me - not just to ask directions to the toilet - and he reads books.
Heathcliff? — Bill Condon

I would rather get a PhD than stand to reach for toilet paper. Though some readers might emphasize the similarities between the two activities. — Rhoda Janzen

If you want to play a cool punk club, that's great - but punk clubs don't have any toilet seats. After a while, little things like that become big issues. — Joe Casey

There is a lot of rubbish written about toilet humour - people saying it is childish and pretending it is beneath them - but there is no doubting the effectiveness of a really good willy gag. — Adrian Edmondson

My mother was always trying to think up plans for what she would do if the Taliban came. She thought of sleeping with a knife under her pillow. I said I could sneak into the toilet and call the police. My brothers and I thought of digging a tunnel. Once again I prayed for a magic wand to make the Taliban disappear. — Malala Yousafzai

Restrooms at gas stations were an unpleasant and shocking surprise; I had never considered the serious drawbacks of such lazily-cleaned rooms. I was completely unable to ignore the filth, and wasted a burst of power to turn the sink, floors and porcelain toilet into sparkling, clean examples of their kind before using the facility. I felt that was a much less judgmental response than simply blowing the place off the face of the Earth, which was also a distinct temptation, especially when the storekeeper overcharged me for a bottle of cold water. — Rachel Caine

The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet - to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind - with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home. — Nhat Hanh

I was swinging like a toilet door on a prawn trawler. — David Feherty

To wash one's hair, make one's toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure. — Sei Shonagon

Life before toilet paper was not worth living. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Sheets, towels and blankets surrounded Travis. He had fashioned a soft pallet to sleep on while I expelled the fifteen shots of tequila I'd consumed the night before. Travis had held my hair out of the toilet, and sat with me all night. — Jamie McGuire

When you hang out with people who are always being supergrateful and appreciating things and saying thank you, in the end it kind of rubs off, and one day after I'd flushed, I turned to the toilet and said, "Thanks, toilet," and it felt pretty natural. — Ruth Ozeki

I can't do it, if I finish that, I'll have to attach a seat belt to the toilet.
Maybe an airbag too. — J.A. Konrath

Don't let yourself fall into 'empty.' Keep cash in the house. Keep gas in your tank. Keep an extra roll of toilet paper squirreled away. Keep your phone charged. — Gretchen Rubin

From the outside looking in, trying to decipher Google's search algorithms is like reading tea leaves in a toilet bowl ... as it's flushing. With the lights off. — Guy Kawasaki

NASA's training philosophy is "no surprises." So what they did is put a simulator on Earth where it looks exactly the same as a shuttle toilet and they put a camera down in the bottom of the opening for solid-waste collection, with a light that basically illuminates your asshole. — Mike Mullane

I actually got so drunk I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl of the Scollay Square Cafe and got pissed and puked on all night long by a thousand sailors and seamen and when I woke up in the morning and found myself all covered and caked and unspeakably dirty I just like a good old Boston man walked down to the Atlantic Avenue docks and jumped into the sea. — Jack Kerouac

He was the first guy to find toilet paper in my butt. — Hilary Winston

You're not just looking up into a curtain of black. You're looking into the eye of the universe. Stare for a while and you start to realize -- on a deep, gut level -- that the moon is a giant rock circling us in space. The sun is a violent, fusion-fueled ball of plasma and gas millions of miles away that destroyed the atmospheres of all of the inner planets (including Mars, which is farther away from it than we are) and would do the same to ours if we weren't lucky enough to have a magnetic field that diverts the solar wind. The cute little pinpricks of light you see out there are other giant, explosive, incredibly pissed-off balls of gas floating in an infinite void, most of which are far more impressive than our puny sun. And that smear of milky white through the sky? That's the center of our own galaxy -- a gigantic pinwheel circling a supermassive black hole like floating detritus around the vortex of a flushing toilet. — Johnny B. Truant

You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. — Bram Stoker

And none of you teenagers have cell phones?"
I wasn't sure what Addie's plan was, but I stepped forward to help her lie her way out of this one. I could tell she wasn't going to answer right. I pointed to all of us in turn, starting with Addie. "She got grounded from hers." Then to Duke. "His fell in the toilet yesterday." Then to Trevor. "His got stolen at a football game." And then pulled mine out. "And mine is out of batteries. — Kasie West

At one point Malkin and one of his colleagues took Eichmann to the toilet. They waited outside. After a few minutes, Eichmann called out to Malkin, 'Darf ich anfangen?' ('May I begin?') Only when told yes did he begin to move his bowels.

The Eichmann Trial, page 17 — Deborah E. Lipstadt

I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.' — Sheryl Crow

I'd rather clean my toilet than go to a show-business party. — Shania Twain

In our society, defecation involves an
individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with
the cleanliness and purity standards expressed in many of our
performances. Such activity also causes the individual to
disarrange his clothing and to 'go out of play, that is, to
drop from his face the expressive mask that he employs in
face-to-face interaction. At the same time ic becomes difficult
for him to reassemble his personal front should the need to
enter into interaction suddenly occur. Perhaps that is a
reason why toilet doors in our society have locks on them. — Erving Goffman

I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown. — Anna White

I would browse for half an hour or so in the secondhand bookstores in the neighborhood. Owning my own 'library' was my only materialistic ambition; in fact, trying to decide which two of these thousands of books to buy that week, I would frequently get so excited that by the time the purchase was accomplished I had to make use of the bookseller's toilet facilities. I don't believe that either microbe or laxative has ever affected me so strongly as the discovery that I was all at once the owner of a slightly soiled copy of Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity in the original English edition. — Philip Roth

I wasn't paying attention," said Myrtle dramatically. "Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm
that I'm
" "Already dead," said Ron hopefully. Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over, and dived headfirst into the toilet, splashing water all over them and vanishing from sight, although from the direction of her muffled sobs, she had come to rest somewhere in the U-bend. — J.K. Rowling

Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where arguments center on which way the toilet paper comes off and whether the lid should be up or down. It is a world where shoes do not walk to the closet and drawers do not close themselves, where coats do not like hangers and socks go AWOL during laundry. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield. — Gary Chapman

The New York Times Review of Books is toilet paper. Used. — James Purdy

My life is in the toilet, Red. We're talking a serious septic tank situation. — Larissa Reinhart

He lay in bed staring upward into the darkness. On the bunk above him, he could hear Peter turning and tossing restlessly. Then Peter slid off the bunk and walked out of the room. Ender heard the hushing sound of the toilet clearing; then Peter stood silhouetted in the doorway. He thinks I'm asleep. He's going to kill me. Peter walked to the bed, and sure enough, he did not lift himself up to his bed. Instead he came and stood by Ender's head. But he did not reach for a pillow to smother Ender. He did not have a weapon. He whispered, "Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels, I'm sorry, I'm your brother, I love you." A long time later, Peter's even breathing said that he was asleep. Ender peeled the bandaid from his neck. And for the second time that day he cried. — Orson Scott Card

Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat. — J.D. Salinger

I wouldn't go in a fast food outlet even to use the toilet. — Jonny Wilkinson

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning. — Liam Neeson

Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet. — Lewis Mumford

Kate, I need to use the toilet," he called through the door.
"You've just had hours in the sea. Couldn't you have gone then?"
"Mum told me to get out of the water first."
"What, even the ocean?"
"It's wrong to pollute." He tried to sound serious. — Barbara Elsborg

One time I tried to use the bathroom in the dark, and I missed the toilet, and I fell on the floor. — Rita Ora

There is no good way to confront a friend who is drinking too much, although doing it when you're not drunk is a good start. Anything you say will cause pain, because a woman who is drinking too much becomes terrified other people will notice. Every time I got an email like the one Charlotte sent, I felt like I'd been trailing toilet paper from my jeans. For, like, ten years. I also burned with anger, because I didn't like the fact that my closest friends had been murmuring behind cupped hands about me, and I told myself that if they loved me, they wouldn't care about this stuff. But that's the opposite of how friendships work. When someone loves you, they care enormously. — Sarah Hepola

Finally, I found what seemed at the time to be a lid of some sort. Presuming it was a toilet seat (but not really caring one way or the other) I lifted it up, then dropped my shorts and began to piss. Ahhh ... success. Then I stumbled back to bed and passed out. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what had actually happened. I woke to the sight of Junior standing over my bed with a look of disgust on his face. Hey, man. Did you pee in my suitcase? — Dave Mustaine

Snap judgments? I'd gotten over those about the time I was toilet trained. Swore off diapers and faith in the human experience all in one week. — Rob Thurman

I'd finally in up in jail for a murder I really did commit. Amazing how fate can work against us sometimes. We like the think we're the center of the Solar System, everything revolving around. More likely, we're the center of the vortex when we flush the toilet. — Victor Gischler

When confronted by an angry partner wanting to know how it is that he or she suddenly has symptoms of syphilis, gonorrhea, pubic lice or any other unpleasantry, it is much easier to answer "I have no idea, dear - I must have gotten it from a toilet seat" than it is to tell the truth. — Anonymous

He looked like a sexy ninja. Or a tiger ready to pounce on his prey. She just looked like she was sitting sideways on an invisible toilet. Curse the male species for making danger look so good! — Leia Shaw

I don't think many people understand what racism is. The intellectuals use it like toilet paper; it's something they can use. It's not something they live. — Mark Fuhrman

I could never plan to have a career that went this well ... you know, there were times when it didn't: when it went into the toilet, or ducked, or was difficult to get moving. — Peter Capaldi

Operation Find A Toilet Before It Was Too Late was in full swing. — Gabrielle Tozer

Hemorrhoids can bleed, typically after a bowel movement, producing blood-streaked stool or toilet paper, .. The blood may turn water in the toilet bowl red. However, the amount of blood is usually small, and hemorrhoids rarely lead to severe blood loss or anemia. — Alfred The Great

Don't ever say that after sex, do you understand? If you feel the urge to say it, go see the girl first thing in the morning, with her night breath and no makeup ... watch her on the toilet ... listen to her with her friends ... go meet her hairy mother and her shrill friends ... and if you still feel the need to say such a stupid thing, then God help you. — Jess Walter

Yes, there was racism, but there was also classism. You're a high-powered corporate attorney. You've spent most of your life reviewing contracts, brokering deals, talking on the phone. That's what you're good at, that's what made you rich and what allowed you to hire a plumber to fix your toilet, which allowed you to keep talking on the phone. The more work you do, the more money you make, the more peons you hire to free you up to make more money. That's the way the world works. But one day it doesn't. No one needs a contract reviewed or a deal brokered. What it does need is toilets fixed. And suddenly that peon is your teacher, maybe even your boss. For some, this was scarier than the living dead. — Max Brooks

Out of all the medical advancements in human history I'm still most in awe of that tiny little piece of toilet paper that can stop a gushing razor cut in its tracks. — Gregor Collins

Yo momma's breath smells so bad I don't know if I should give her a Tic Tac or a piece of toilet paper. Yo — THE CLOWN FACTORY

Her gaze shifted from him to Keir and back again, a smile curling one end of her tantalizing lips. "So you're the brotherhood of the fighting toilet cleaners? — Avery Flynn

I don't know why no one ever thought to paste a label on the toilet-tissue spindle giving 1-2-3 directions for replacing the tissue on it. Then everyone in the house would know what Mama knows. — Erma Bombeck

At the store, they have one-hundred-percent-recycled toilet paper," Marla says. "The worst job in the whole world must be recycling toilet paper." I — Chuck Palahniuk

An enormous bartender came over. He looked like the pullout centerfold for Leather Biker Monthly. Extra big and extra scary. He had long hair, a long scar, and tattoos of snakes slithering up both arms. He shot the two men a glare and - poof - they were gone. Like the glare had evaporated them. Then he turned his eyes toward Esperanza. She met the glare and gave him one back. Neither backed down. "Lady, what the fuck are you?" he asked. "Is that a new way of asking what I'm drinking?" "No." The mutual glaring continued. He leaned two massive snake-arms on the bar. "You're too good-looking to be a cop," he said. "And you're too good-looking to be hanging out in this toilet. — Harlan Coben

Science attacks our most cherished opinions. Opinions which come straight
from our collective gut. Oh, wait, according to gastroenterologists, the only thing that comes from the gut is waste left from the digestion of food. That's right, "waste." I guess that means that scientists literally think our opinions should be flushed down the toilet! — Stephen Colbert

From the stage I've seen people of all ages absolutely roaring at really good toilet humour. — Adrian Edmondson

DOCTOR AIN WAS recognized on the Omaha-Chicago flight. A biologist colleague from Pasadena came out of the toilet and saw Ain in an aisle seat. Five years before, this man had been jealous of Ain's huge grants. Now he nodded coldly and was surprised at the intensity of Ain's response. He almost turned back to speak, but he felt too tired; like nearly everyone, he was fighting the flu.

The stewardess handing out coats after they landed remembered Ain too: A tall thin nondescript man with rusty hair. He held up the line staring at her; since he already had his raincoat with him she decided it was some kooky kind of pass and waved him on.

She saw Ain shamble off into the airport smog, apparently alone. Despite the big Civil Defense signs, O'Hare was late getting underground. No one noticed the woman.

- 'The Last Flight of Doctor Ain — James Tiptree Jr.

If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular piece of mine,
shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. — James Dickey

What do you see in him anyway?" "He doesn't leave the toilet seat up." I smiled bitterly — Jayde Scott

She used my toothbrush to clean the toilet. — The Notorious B.I.G.

You know you've got problems when your head is hanging over the toilet, puking up your dinner, and what you're thinking of is your dad. And how he thinks you're not pretty. — Teresa Lo

I felt like a toilet frog during the last three decades of the preceding century. (38) — Frans De Waal

I do the movies just for myself like an institutionalized person who basket-weaves. Busy fingers are happy fingers. I don't care about the films. I don't care if they're flushed down the toilet after I die. — Woody Allen

In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen - a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children - I learned a lot. — Patti Smith

There were other stories and other names. Second Base Stace, who had breasts in fourth grade and let some of the boys feel them. Vincent, who took acid and tried to flush a sofa down the toilet. Sheila, who allegedly masturbated with a hot dog and had to go to the emergency room. The list went on and on. — Stephen Chbosky

I like to play pranks on my girlfriend, you know, keep things fresh for me, make me laugh, you know? She hates it. But like, the other night, I put Saran wrap over the toilet seat, you know, which doesn't sound that original, but she's bulimic. — Anthony Jeselnik

The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet. — Orson Scott Card

I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder - I believe she stole it from her mother's Spanish maid - a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush prevented them from overflowing - and as we drew away from each other, and with aching veins attended to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the
house her mother's voice calling her, with a rising frantic note - and Dr. Cooper ponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove - the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since - until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another. — Vladimir Nabokov