# Quote — Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs

> The whole secret of raising a fart in class is to make it sound as if it is punctuating, or commenting upon, what the teacher is saying. Timing, not ripeness, is all. 'And since x tends to y as c tends to d,' Fred expounded, 'then the differential of the increment of x squared must be... must be... come on, come on! What must it flaming be?' Here was the chance to to give my version of what it must be. I armed one, opened the bomb bay, and let it go. Unfortunately, the results far exceeded the discreet limits I had intended. It sounded like a moose coughing.

- Author: [Clive James](https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james.md)
- Book: [Unreliable Memoirs](https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james/unreliable-memoirs.md)
- Page: 105
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clive_James#Unreliable_Memoirs_(1980)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james/unreliable-memoirs/the-whole-secret

## More from this book

> Children in Australia are still named after movies and sporting events. You can tell roughly the year the swimming star Shane Gould was born. It was about the time Shane was released. There was a famous case of a returned serviceman who named his son after all the campaigns he had been through in the Western Desert. The kid was called William Bardia Escarpment Qattara Depression Mersa Matruh Tobruk El Alamein Benghazi Tripoli Harris.

p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james/unreliable-memoirs/children-in-australia.md)

> Riding the crest, I diversified, exploiting a highly marketable capacity to fart at will... By mastering this skill I set myself on a par with those court jesters of old who could wow the monarch and all his retinue with a simultaneous leap, whistle and fart. Unable to extend my neo-Homeric story-telling activities from the playground to the classroom, I could nevertheless continue to hog the limelight by interpolating a gaseous running commentary while the teacher addressed himself to the blackboard.

p. 105 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james/unreliable-memoirs/riding-the-crest.md)

> Rilke used to say that no poet would mind going to gaol, since he would at least have time to explore the treasure house of his memory. In many respects Rilke was a prick.

p. 9 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/clive-james/unreliable-memoirs/rilke-used-to-say.md)