You're one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at meal-time. That's fine, there's something to be said for that.… - Patrick Süskind

A guard was like a sphinx. He functioned not by some deed, but rather by his mere bodily presence.

People could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they couldn't escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath.

She was one of those languid women made of dark honey, smooth and sweet and terribly sticky, who take control of a room with a syrupy gesture, a toss of the hair, a single slow whiplash of the eyes—and all the while remain as still as the center of a hurricane, apparently unaware of the force of gravity by which they irresistibly attract to themselves the yearnings and the souls of both men and women.