Perfume Quotes

“He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

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

“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

“For 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. Together with breath it entered human beings, who couldn't defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
― 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

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

“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

“People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.”
― 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

“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

“There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.”
― 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 deserts, 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 Suskind, 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

“He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.”
― 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

“This scent had a freshness, but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates, not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles, not that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water... and at the same time it had warmth, but not as bergamot, cypress, or musk has, or jasmine or daffodils, not as rosewood has or iris... This scent was a blend of both, of evanescence and substance, not a blend, but a unity, although slight and frail as well, and yet solid and sustaining, like a piece of thin, shimmering silk... and yet again not like silk, but like pastry soaked in honey-sweet milk - and try as he would he couldn't fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable, indescribable, could not be categorized in any way - it really ought not to exist at all. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.”
― Patrick Suskind, Perfume The Story of a Murderer

“Moonlight knew no colors and traced the contours of the terrain only very softly. It covered the land a dirty gray, strangling life all night long. This world molded in lead, where nothing moved but the wind that fell sometimes like a shadow over the gray forests, and where nothing lived but the scent of the naked earth, was the only world he accepted, for it was much like the world of his soul.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

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

“It was good, really, that this external world still existed, if only as a place of refuge.”
― patrick suskind, Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer

“And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.”
― 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

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

“لقد أعجب برائحة البحر لدرجة أن اشتهى الحصول عليها ، ولو مرة .. نقية دون شوائب وبكميات وافره تسكره.”
― 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

“بوسع البشر أن يغمضوا أعينهم أمام ما هو عظيم أو جميل، وأن يغلقوا آذانهم أمام الألحان والكلام المعسول ولكن ليس بوسعهم الهروب من العبق لأنه شقيق الشهيق، معه يدخل إلى ذواتهم، ولا يستطيعون صدّه إن رغبوا بالبقاء على قيد الحياة، إنه يدخل إلى أعماقهم، إلى القلب مباشرة، حيث يتم الفصل الحاسم بين الميل إليه أو احتقاره، بين القرف منه أو الرغبة فيه، بين حبه أو كرهه.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“القاعدة الثانية تقول بأن العطر يعيش مع الزمن ، فله مراحل شبابه ونضجه وشيخوخته وفقط عندما يتخطى مراحل العمر المختلفة محافظا على أريجه بالوتيرة ذاتها يعتبر عطرا ناجحا.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Grenouille no longer wanted to go somewhere, but only to go away, away from human beings.”
― Patrick Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer