“Hydrogen selenide, I decided, was perhaps the worst smell in the world. But hydrogen telluride came close, was also a smell from hell. An up-to-date hell, I decided, would have not just rivers of fiery brimstone, but lakes of boiling selenium and tellurium, too.”

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 90

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Oliver Sacks18
British neurologist and writer 1933–2015

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