The Human Body
“How bewitching the beauty of the human body, composed not of paint or stone, but of living, corruptible matter, charged with the secret fevers of life and decay! Consider the wonderful asymmetry of this structure: Shoulders and hips and nipples swelling on either side of the breast, and ribs arranged in pairs, and the navel centered in the belly’s softness, and the dark sex between the thighs. Consider the shoulder blades moving beneath the silky skin of the back, and the backbone in its descent to the paired richness of the cool buttocks, and the great branching of vessels and nerves that passes from the torso to the arms by way of the armpits, and how the structure of the arms corresponds to that of the legs!” –Thomas MannThe Magic Mountain