Patrick Süskind > Quotes

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume

“He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Very well, but remember this... I'll be looking at you when you're laid on the cross and the twelve blows are crashing down on your limbs. When the crowd is finally tired of your screams and wandered home, I will climb up through your blood and sit beside you. I will look deep into your eyes... and drop by drop I will trickle my disgust into them like burning acid until... finally... you perish.”
― Patrick Süskind

“المشي يهدىء الأعصاب ،في المشي تكمن قوة شافية. هذه الرتابة في تحريك قدم بعد الأخرى بإيقاع متزن مع التلويح بالذراعين على الجانبين، هذا التسارع في تردد النفس والنشاط الخفيف في النبض ، ذلك التوظيف الضروري للعينين والأذنين لتحديد الإتجاه والمحافظة على التوازن ، هذا الشعور بالهواء الذي يهف على الجلد، كل هذه أشياء تضطر الروح والجسد للتوحد بطريقة حتمية،وتترك الروح، حتى لو كانت في أشد حالاتها غياباً وتثاقلاً، تنمو وتتسع.”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“She was indeed a girl of exquisite beauty. She was one of those languid women made of dark honey smooth and sweet and terribly sticky.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“We are familiar with people who seek out solitude: penitents, failures, saints, or prophets. They retreat to desers, preferably, where they live on locusts and honey. Others, however, live in caves or cells on remote islands; some-more spectacularly-squat in cages mounted high atop poles swaying in the breeze. They do this to be nearer God. Their solitude is a self-moritification by which they do penance. They act in the belief that they are living a life pleasing to God. Or they wait months, years, for their solitude to be broken by some divine message that they hope then speedily to broadcast among mankind.
Grenouille's case was nothing of the sort. There was not the least notion of God in his head. He was not doing penance or wating for some supernatural inspiration. He had withdrawn solely for his own pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid. He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his heart hardly beating-and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake lived in the wide world outside.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“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.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces.The peasant stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter”
― Patrick Süskind

“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 he had to close his own eyes for a second to get out of it..”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“...if you could not close a door behind you to take a shit in the city - even if it was just the door to a shared toilet - if this one, most essential freedom was taken away from you, the freedom, that is, to withdraw from other people when necessity called, then all other freedoms were worthless. Then life had no more meaning. Then it would be better to be dead. ”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“...talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“ان تعاسة الانسان تنتج من كونه لا يريد أن يقبع ساكناً في غرفته هناك حيث يجب أن يكون”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“And finally - he was neither able nor willing to prevent it - the self-loathing dammed up inside him spilled over and gushed out, gushed out of glaring eyes that grew ever grimmer, angrier, beneath the rim of his cap, flooding the outside world as perfect, vulgar hate.”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“Although he had used it very sparingly, the perfume that he had mixed in Montpellier was slowly was slowly running out. He created a new one. But this time he was not content simply to imitate basic human odor by hastily tossing together some ingredients; he made it a matter of pride to acquire a personal odor, or better yet, a number of personal odors...
Protected by these various odors, which he changed like clothes as the situation demanded and which permitted him to move undisturbed in the world of men and to keep his true nature from them, Grenouille devoted himself to his real passion: the subtle pursuit of scent.”
― Patrick Süskind

“No human being can go on living in the same house with a pigeon, a pigeon is the epitomy of chaos and anarchy, a pigeon that whizzes around unpredictably, that sets it's claws in you, picks at your eyes..”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“He was not bound. No one led him by the arm. He got out of the carriage as if he were a free man.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“...his sleep, though deep as death itself, was not dreamless this time, but threaded with ghostly wisps of dreams. These wisps were clearly recognizable as scraps of odors. At first they merely floated in thin threads past Grenouille's nose, but then they grew thicker, more cloudlike. And now it seemed as if he were standing in the middle of a moor from which fog was rising. The fog slowly climbed higher. Soon Grenouille was completely wrapped in fog, saturated with fog, and it seemed he could not get his breath for the foggy vapor. If he did not want to suffocate, he would have to breathe the fog in. And the fog was, as noted, an odor. And Grenouille knew what kind of odor. The fog ws his own odor. His, Grenouille's, own body odor was the fog.

And the awful thing was that Grenouille, although he knew that his odor was his odor, could not smell it. Virtually drowning in himself, he could not for the life of him smell himself!”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“And suddenly solitude fell across his heart like a dusty reflection. He closed his eyes. The dark doors within him opened and he entered. The next performance in the theater of Grenouille's soul was beginning.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He had withdrawn solely for his own personal pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“الرب يمنحنا أيام عسر وايام يسر، لكنه لا يريد منّا في أيام العسر أن نندب وننعى وإنما أن نتصرف برجولة”
― Patrick Süskind

“Cet homme paraissait être tellement fatigué de sa vie qu'il ne voulait même pas vivre ses dernières heures éveillé.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“How quickly the apparently solidly laid foundation of one's existence could crumble.”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“He had a mighty urge to pull out his pistol and let loose in every directon, right into the coffeehouse, smack through it's glass windows, till there was nothing but crashing and tinkling, right into the middle of the ruck of cars or simply into the middle of one of the gigantic buildings across the way, those ugly, tall, menacing buildings, or into the air, straight up, into the heavens, yes, into the hot sky, into the horrible, oppressive, vaporous, pigeon blue-grey sky, bursting it, sending the leaden lid crashing with one shot, smashing down and pulverizing everything and burying it all, all of it, the whole miserable, dreary, loud, stinking world...”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“ندرة من البشر يُلْهـِمون الحب، و هؤلاء سيكونون ضحاياه”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“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. There is no remedy for it.”
― Patrick Süskind

“سبب تعاسة الإنسان يكمن في أنّه لا يريد الركون إلى حجرته حيث يجب أن يكون”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“‎جميع المشاكل تدور حول المال. حالما يطرق أحدهم هذه البوابة يكون عنده مشكلة مالية. أتمنى من كل قلبي أن أفتح مرة البوابة لأجد إنسانا عنده شيء آخر غير مشكلة المال أو أجد شخصا يحمل هدية صغيرة”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable, incomprehensible, willful little prehuman creatures, who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves, who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will, and would do it, too, if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined, self-controlled, fully human existence.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Dalszą pozycją w jego arsenale był zapach wzbudzający litość, skuteczny na kobiety w średnim i podeszłym wieku. Trącił rozwodnionym mlekiem i czystym białym drewnem. Grenouille – nawet jeżeli zjawiał się nieogolony, z ponurą miną i w wierzchnim okryciu – sprawiał wówczas zabiedzonego, bledziutkiego chłopaczka w postrzępionej kurtce, któremu koniecznie trzeba pomóc. Przekupki na rynku, poruszone tym zapachem, wtykały mu orzechy i suszone gruszki, ponieważ wydawał im się wygłodzony i bezradny. Rzeźniczka zaś, skądinąd kawał jędzy, pozwalała mu wybierać stare cuchnące ochłapy mięsa i kości i zabierać to sobie gratis, ponieważ ów zapach niewinności wzruszał jej macierzyńskie serce.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“...he came to the conclusion that you cannot depend on people, and that you can live in peace only if you keep them at arm's length.”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“Aveva un odore semplice, il mare, ma nello stesso tempo così vasto e unico nel suo genere, che Grenouille esitava a suddividerlo in odore di pesce, di sale, di acqua, di alga, di fresco e così via. Preferiva lasciare intatto l'odore del mare, lo custodiva intero nella memoria e lo godeva indiviso. L'odore del mare gli piaceva tanto che avrebbe desiderato una volta averlo puro, non mescolato e in quantità tale da potersene ubriacare.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“As he took possession of it, he was overcome by a sense of something like sacred awe. He carefully spread his horse blanket on the ground as if dressing an altar and lay down on it. He felt blessedly wonderful. He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother's belly. The world could go up on flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He even began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“For here, inside the crypt, was where he truly lived. Which is to say, for well over twenty hours a day in total darkness and in total silence and in total immobility, he sat on his horse blanket at the end of the stony corridor, his back resting on the rock slide, his shoulders wedged between the rocks and enjoyed himself.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his heart hardly beating - and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake had lived in the wide world outside.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“لا شيء يَمُرُّ بأنفِ غرينوي تامّ الحرية”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“رمى جوناثان غطاء صدأ حقده الكريه على كل ما تقع عليه أنظاره، بل يمكن القول، إن صورة حقيقية عن العالم لم تعد تنفذ عبر عينيه إلى داخله، بل وكأن اتجاه الأشعة انعكس، كأن العينان لم تعودا سوى بوابتين للمرور إلى الخارج لتغمرا العالم بالصور المشوهة في الداخل”
― Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon

“He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He had no use for sensual gratification, unless that gratification consisted of pure, incorporeal odors.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Virtually drowning in himself, he could not for the life of him smell himself.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He had escaped the abhorrent taint! He was truly completely alone! He was the only human being in the world!”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“…in that moment, as he saw and smelled how irresistible its effect was and how with lightning speed it spread and made captives of the people all around him—in that moment his whole disgust for humankind rose up again within him and completely soured his triumph, so that he felt not only no joy, but not even the least bit of satisfaction. What he had always longed for—that other people should love him—became at the moment of his achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred—in hating and in being hated.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer