Patrick Suskind Quotes & Sayings

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

He had to hold his body very still, very still, like some vessel about to slosh over from too much motion. Gradually he managed to get control of his breathing. His excited heart beat more steadily; the pounding of the waves inside him subsided slowly. And suddenly solitude fell across his heart like a dusky reflection. He closed his eyes. The dark doors within him opened, and he entered. The next performance in the theatre of his soul was beginning. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

The mountain consisted of a giant cone of blue-gray rock and was surrounded by an endless, barren highland studded with a few trees charred by fire and overgrown with gray moss and gray brush, out of which here and there brown boulders jutted up like rotten teeth. Even by light of day, the region was so dismal and dreary that the poorest shepherd in this poverty-stricken province would not have driven his animals here. And by night, by the bleaching light of the moon, it was such a godforsaken wilderness that it seemed not of this world. — Patrick Suskind

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

And now fear spread over the countryside. People no longer knew against whom
to direct their impotent rage. — Patrick Suskind

... 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 Suskind

Something was happening while
you waited. The most essential thing was happening. And even if he himself was doing
nothing, it was happening through him nevertheless. He had done his best. He had
employed all his artistic skill. He had made not one single mistake. His performance had
been unique. It would be crowned with success ... He need only wait a few more hours. It
filled him with profound satisfaction, this waiting. He had never felt so fine in all his life,
so peaceful, so steady, so whole and at one with himself — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

God gives good times and bad times, but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times, but to prove ourselves men. — Patrick Suskind

He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can't bring yourslef to crush in your own hand disgusts you. — Patrick Suskind

How quickly the apparently solidly laid foundation of one's existence could crumble. — Patrick Suskind

He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent. — Patrick Suskind

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

The wind blew cold, and he was freezing, but he did not notice that he was freezing, for within him was a counterfrost, fear. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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

He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human, but super human, an angels scent, so indescribably good and vital that who ever smelt it would be enchanted and with his whole heart would have to love him. — Patrick Suskind

It was good, really, that this external world still existed, if only as a place of refuge. — Patrick Suskind

From his youth on , he had been accustomed to people's passing him and taking no notice of him whatever , not out contempt -as hehad once believed - But because they were quite unaware of his existence. There was no space surrounding him, no waves broke from him into the atmosphere, as with other people; he had no shadow, so to speak, to cast across another's face. Only if he ran right into someone in a crowd or in a street-corner collision would there be a brief moment of discernment; and th person en countered would bounce off and stare at him for a few seconds as if gazing at a creature that ought not even exist, a creature that, although undeniably there, in some way or other was not present- and would take to his heels and have forgotten him, Grenouille, a moment later ....... — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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

There were no mad flashings of the eye, no lunatic grimace passed over his face. He was not out of his mind, which was so clear and buoyant that he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all. And he said to himself that he wanted to do it because he was evil, thoroughly evil. And he smiled as he said it and was content. He looked quite innocent, like any happy person. — Patrick Suskind

The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in, pure and unadulterated, in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. And later, when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships fit days on end without ever seeing land, nothing pleased him more than the image of himself shutting high up in the crow's nest of the foremost mast on such ship, gliding on through the endless shell of the sea
which really was no smell, but a breath, an exhilaration of breath, the end of all smells
dissolving with pleasure in that breath. — Patrick Suskind

constantly before his eyes now was a river flowing from him; and it was as if he himself and his house and the wealth he had accumulated over many decades were flowing away like the river, while he was too old and too weak to oppose the powerful current. — Patrick Suskind

Grenouille's mother, however, perceived the odor neither of the fish nor of the corpses, for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled, besides which her belly hurt, and the pain deadened all susceptibility of sensate impressions. — Patrick Suskind

Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything. — Patrick Suskind

She had a face so
charming that visitors of all ages and both sexes would stand stockstill at the sight of her,
unable to pull their eyes away, practically licking that face with their eyes, the way
tongues work at ice cream, with that typically stupid, single
minded expression on their
faces that goes with concentrated licking — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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

As long as I don't have an idea, I won't write anything. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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

Not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame. — Patrick Suskind

For Grenouille, this simplicity seemed a deliverance. — Patrick Suskind

Bathed in sweat and trembling with agitation, no,
not with agitation, but with fear, for he finally admitted it to himself: it was naked fear
that had seized him, and in admitting it he grew calmer and his thoughts clearer — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

He was finally able to bask in his own existence; and he found it splendid. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

This perfume was not like any perfume known before. It was not a scent that made things smell better ... it was completely new, capable of creating a whole world, a magical, rich world, and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich, so at ease, so free, so fine ... — Patrick Suskind

Mrs. Porter was fat, and her breath smelled like burnt newspapers. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

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 Suskind

Ignorance is the only possible happiness this world has to offer — Patrick Suskind

He did not want to have his newfound respiratory freedom ruined so soon be the sultry climate of humans. — Patrick Suskind

And he wallowed in disgust and loathing, and his hair stood on end at the delicious horror. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

How Miserable this God smelled! How ridiculously bad the scent that this God let spill from Him. It was not even genuine frankincense fuming out of those thuribles. A bad substitute, adulterated with linden and cinnamon dust and saltpeter. God stank. God was a poor little stinker. He had been swindled, this God had, or was Himself a swindler, no different from Grenouille-only a considerably worse one! — Patrick Suskind

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 centre of a hurricane, apparently unaware of the force of gravity by which they irresistibly attract themselves the yearnings and the souls of both men and women. — Patrick Suskind

He had used only a drop of his perfume for his performance in Grasse. There was enough left to enslave the whole world. If he wanted, he could be feted in Paris, not by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of people; or could walk out to Versailles and have the King kiss his feet; write the Pope a perfumed letter and reveal himself as the new Messiah; be anointed in Notre-Dame as Supreme Emperor before kings, or even as God come to earth. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

He no longer yearned for his life in the cave. He had experienced that life once and it had proved unlivable. Just as had his other experience - life among human beings. He was suffocated by both worlds. He no longer wanted to live at all. — Patrick Suskind

Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. He knew at most some very rare states of numbed contentment. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. It was as if he had been born a second time; no, not a second time, the first time, for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. but after today, he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius ... He had found the compass for his future life. And like all gifted abominations, for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls, Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him ... He must become a creator of scents ... the greatest perfumer of all time. — Patrick Suskind

But perhaps we ask too much of him. Perhaps he really was only a god. — Patrick Suskind

If we want to discuss love, which after all we believe is something very special, it is not much help for someone to explain that it represents a universal basic principle governing the tides and the digestive system alike. He might as well tell us that death is a thermodynamic phenomenon affecting both the amoeba and a black hole in the constellation of Pegasus - and he would still have told us nothing. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

Virtually drowning in himself, he could not for the life of him smell himself. — Patrick Suskind

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 Suskind

Man's misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. — Patrick Suskind

But he did decide vegetatively, as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. — Patrick Suskind

As he began to withdraw from them, it became clear to Grenouille for the first time that for eighteen years their compacted human effluvium had oppressed him like air heavy with an imminent thunderstorm. Until now he had thought that it was the world in general he had wanted to squirm away from. But it was not the world, it was the people in it. You could live, so it seemed, in this world, in this world devoid of humanity. On — Patrick Suskind