Quotes from Patrick Süskind

People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.

He had withdrawn solely for his own personal pleasure, only to be near to himself.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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

O instrumento tem dentro de si um mundo, teórico e físico. Só que demonstrá-lo, ninguém o faz, do ponte de vista prático-musical. O mesmo se passa com os instrumentos de sopro. E com todas as pessoas... agora em sentido figurado. Conheço pessoas que possuem dentro de si todo um universo, incomensurável. Mas fazer com que ele saia cá para fora, isso ninguém o faz. Seria o fim. Mas adiante...

daca iti era luata aceasta unica libertate, cea mai importanta dintre toate, si anume libertatea de a te izola la nevoie de ceilalti oameni, atunci toate celelalte libertati nu valorau nimic. Atunci viata nu mai avea rost.

Thronging the bridges and the quays along both banks of the river, a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah's and oh's and even some "long live"'s--although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was long since behind him. Fireworks can do that.