“Do you realize the illicit sensuous delight I get from picking my nose? I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucous in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucous, roll them round and jellylike between thumb and forefinger, and spread them on the undersurface of a desk or chair where they will harden into organic crusts. How many desks and chairs have I thus secretively befouled since childhood? Or sometimes there will be blood mingled with the mucous: in dry brown scabs, or bright sudden wet red on the finger that scraped too rudely the nasal membranes. God, what sexual satisfaction!”

“On the left side of my cheek a row of crusted scabbed stitches hold a deep 1 inch-long gash together. My nose is bent and swollen beneath its bandage and red lines streak from my nostrils. There are black and yellow bruises beneath both eyes, there is blood both wet and dry everywhere." (James Frey)”

“Still, I may have been glad to scratch the dry surface of our day-to-day peaceableness the way Violetta had clawed the sere crust on her limbs, anything to get something bright and liquid flowing again, out in the open and slippery between our fingers.”

“For some people, getting pregnant is as easy as catching cold." And there certainly was an analogy there: Colds and babies were both caused by germs which loved nothing so much as a mucous membrane.”

“Colds and babies were both caused by germs which loved nothing so much as a mucous membrane.”

“He held up his right hand and spread my fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other.”