Nothing is more short-lived than the erection; like the crocus of spring, it is there for a moment, and then it is gone; one moment the penis is small, soft, and insignificant, and then in the next it is hard, rigid, and three and four times its previous size.
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 128