Lapham’s Quarterly

The body says what words cannot.

One’s body, hair, and skin are a gift from one’s parents—do not dare to allow them to be harmed.

O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.

It hurts to watch the fluency of a body acclimated to its shackling.

Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

If I see something sagging, dragging, or bagging, I’m going to go have the stuff tucked or plucked.

Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.

Your body is the church where nature asks to be reverenced.

Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.

I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.

What are men anyway but balloons on legs, a lot of blown-up bladders?

I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do.

Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit has made permanent.

Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented.

To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.

If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window.

As the saying goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

The world is made of the very stuff of the body.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

The enlightened man says: I am body entirely and nothing beside.

Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body.