“People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused.”

Bleed A River Deep

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One
Context: Well, I'll take these pages and move on. Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)

Speech to the London Young Liberal Federation in the National Liberal Club (5 January 1925), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 109
Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons

Fast as You Can
Song lyrics, When the Pawn… (1999)

Quoted in Rap Attack 2 (1991) by David Toop, p. 65

Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 30
Context: Perhaps you think that the crucial difference between a fly and a human blastocyst is to be found in the latter's potential to become a fully developed human being. But almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering. Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings. This is a fact. The argument from a cell's potential gets you absolutely nowhere.