And when Hightower approaches, the smell of plump unwashed flesh and unfresh clothing — that odor of unfastidious sedentation, of static overflesh not often enough bathed — is well nigh overpowering. [...] It is the odor of goodness. Of course it would smell bad to us that are bad and sinful.

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About William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American novelist and short story writer whose works feature his native state of Mississippi. He was regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century and was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Additional quotes by William Faulkner

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are <i>was</i>, it is not. Yet the wagon <i>is</i>, because when the wagon is <i>was</i>, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel <i>is</i>, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am <i>is</i>.

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.