Patrick Süskind Quotes

With one glance he had got himself trapped in the brown fundament of her eyes, he was in danger of sinking, as if into a soft, brown swamp, and had to close his eyes for a second to get out of it.

All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt that language made any sense at all.

So spoke Grenouille the Great and, while the peasantry of scent danced and celebrated beneath him, he glided with wide-stretched wings down from his golden clouds, across the nocturnal fields of his soul, and home to his heart.

Whatever the art or whatever the craft—and make a note of this before you go—talent means next to nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.

He had no use for sensual gratification, unless that gratification consisted of pure, incorporeal odors.

He felt only the sentiment that is generally termed tolerance: a very lukewarm emotional stew of disgust, contempt, and sympathy.

Suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred—in hating and in being hated.

Odours have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions or will. The persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally.

What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes?

Grenouille no longer wanted to go somewhere, but only to go away, away from human beings.

He was very suspicious of inventions, for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken.

He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.

He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.

He had escaped the abhorrent taint! He was truly completely alone! He was the only human being in the world!

When they finally did dare it, at first with stolen glances and then candid ones, they had to smile. They were uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of Love.