Perfumes

We also live in such unsmelly times, with most everyone bathing and washing clothes regularly, and public sanitation working invisibly and reliably to sweep away the foul detritus of the day, that the ordinary person may find herself sensitive to fragrance the way you might find yourself sensitive to noise after spending a week at a spiritual retreat where everyone talks in whispers and walks in cotton socks. If you'd like to overcome a general oversensitivity about perfumes, the best cure is to find perfumes you like and to let them teach you to enjoy smelling beautiful things. If instead you'd rather demand that the world be utterly scent-free, you're a drag.

Quoted on September 30, 2011