What he coveted was the odor of certain human beings: that is, those rare humans who inspire love. These were his victims. - Patrick Süskind

He wallowed in disgust and loathing, and his hair stood on end at the delicious horror.

Even knowing that to possess that scent he must pay the terrible price of losing it again, the very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic renunciation of both. For he had renounced things all his life. But never once had he possessed and lost.

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.