“How sweet the air does smell — even the air of a back-street in the suburbs — after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of the spike!”

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 27, on the morning after Orwell is let out of his first tramps' accommodation, or 'spike'.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How sweet the air does smell — even the air of a back-street in the suburbs — after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of th…" by George Orwell?
George Orwell photo
George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950

Related quotes

Margaret Thatcher photo

“I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air—the rather nauseating stench of appeasement.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108234 On a parliament debate about the Gulf War
Third term as Prime Minister

Anne Rice photo
Larry Niven photo

“And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges.”

Section 2, Vandervecken (p. 166)
Protector (1973)

Patrick Rothfuss photo

“When trees burn, they leave the smell of heartbreak in the air.”

Jodi Thomas (1950) American writer

Source: Welcome to Harmony

Garrison Keillor photo

“It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations‎ (1988) by James Beasley Simpson, p. 211

Ian McEwan photo
Poul Anderson photo

“He welcomed the air raids, the noise of the Mustangs as they swept over the camp, the smell of oil and cordite, the deaths of the pilots, and even the likelihood of his own death.”

Empire of the Sun (1984)
Context: The two parachutes fell towards the burial mounds. Already a squad of Japanese soldiers in a truck with a steaming radiator sped along the perimeter road, on their way to kill the pilots. Jim wiped the dust from his Latin primer and waited for the rifle shots.
The halo of light which had emerged from the burning Mustang still lay over the creeks and paddies. For a few minutes the sun had drawn nearer to the earth, as if to scorch the death from the fields.
Jim grieved for these American pilots, who died in a tangle of their harnesses, within sight of a Japanese corporal with a Mauser and a single English boy hidden on the balcony of this ruined building. Yet their end reminded Jim of his own, about which he had thought in a clandestine way ever since his arrival at Lunghua.
He welcomed the air raids, the noise of the Mustangs as they swept over the camp, the smell of oil and cordite, the deaths of the pilots, and even the likelihood of his own death. Despite everything he knew he was worth nothing. He twisted his Latin primer, trembling with a secret hunger that the war would so eagerly satisfy.

Related topics