Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea p. 7

The best thing would be to write down events from day to day. Keep a diary to see clearly--let none of the nuances or small happenings escape even though they might seem to mean nothing. And above all, classify them. I must tell how I see this table, this street, the people, my packet of tobacco, since those are the things which have changed. I must determine the exact extent and nature of this change.

For instance, here is a cardboard box holding my bottle of ink. I should try to tell how I saw it before and now how I¹ Well, it's a parallelopiped rectangle, it opens--that's stupid, there's nothing I can say about it. This is what I have to avoid, I must not put in strangeness where there is none. I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything. You continually force the truth because you're always looking for something. On the other hand, it is certain that from one minute to the next--and precisely à propos of this box or any other object at all I can recapture this impression of day-before-yesterday. I must always be ready, otherwise it will slip through my fingers. I must never² but carefully note and detail all that happens.

¹ Word left out.
² Word crossed out (possibly "force" or "forge"), another word added above, is illegible.

Donovan, "Riki Tiki Tavi" from Open Road

Everybody who's read The Jungle Book knows that Riki Tiki Tavi's a mongoose who kills snakes. Well when I was a young man I was led to believe there were organizations to kill my snakes for me: i.e., the church; i.e., the government; i.e., the schools. But when I got a little older I learned I had to kill them for myself.

Riki Tiki Tavi, mongoose is gone. Riki Tiki Tavi, mongoose is gone. Won't be coming around for to kill your snakes no more my love. Riki Tiki Tavi, mongoose is gone.

Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles p. 29

He was less interested in television. Every week, however, his heart in his mouth, he watched The Animal Kingdom. Graceful animals like gazelles and antelopes spent their days in abject terror while lions and panthers lived out their lives in listless imbecility punctuated by explosive bursts of cruelty. They slaughtered weaker animals, dismembered and devoured the sick and the old before falling back into a brutish sleep where the only activity was that of the parasites feeding on them from within. Some of these parasites were hosts to smaller parasites, which in turn were a breeding ground for viruses. Snakes moved among the trees, their fangs bared, ready to strike at bird or mammal, only to be ripped apart by hawks. The pompous, half-witted voice of Claude Darget, filled with awe and unjustifiable admiration, narrated these atrocities. Michel trembled with indignation. But as he watched, the unshakable conviction grew that nature, taken as a whole, was a repulsive cesspit. All in all, nature deserved to be wiped out in a holocaust--and man's mission on earth was probably to do just that.