Perfume Patrick Suskind
Significant Quotations
“…there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era” p3
“She had effected all the others here at the fish booth, and all had been still births, or semi-stillbirths, for the
bloody meat that emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already, nor had lived
much longer, and by evening the whole mess had been shovelled away and carted off to the graveyard or
down to the river.” P5
“…babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received even so much as a name…” p7
“The odour of humans is always a fleshly odour – that is, a sinful odour.” P16
“The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child’s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom. Or
rather, like the cups of that small meat- eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens.” P17
“It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils, as if it were staring intently at him, scrutinising
him, more piercingly than eyes could ever do, as if it were using its nose to devour something whole…” p18
For Little Grenouille, Madame Gaillard’s establishment was a blessing. Pg 21
The other children however, sensed at once what Grenouille was about. From the first day, the new arrival
was a sinister presence to them. Pg 23
Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood, but kinds of wood ... and could clearly differentiate them as
objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. Pg 26
Madame Gaillard, however, noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual, if not
to say supernatural. Pg 28
... and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his
disposal. Pg 38
‘For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his lied seen anything so
beautiful as this girl- although he only caught her from behind in the silhouette against the candle light. He
meant, of course, had never smelled anything so beautiful.’
‘And now he smelled that was human being, smelled the sweat of her armpits, the oil in her hair, the fishy
odour in her genitals, and smelled it all with the greatest pleasure. Her sweat smelled as fresh as sea
breeze…’
‘Above his (Giuseppe Baldini) window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin, next to which
hung Baldini’s coat of arms, all in gold: gold falcon, from which grew banquet of golden flowers. And before
the door laid a red carpet, also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold.’
‘Baldini: I do not care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. I certainly would not take his
inspiration from him, assure you. …. As you know I take no inspiration from no one. As you know, I create my
own perfume.’
‘God knew, he, Giuseppe Baldini- owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris, with the best possible
address – only to manage to stay out of the red by making house calls, valise in hand. And that did not suite
him at all,’
"God, good God! - then you needn't to wonder that everything was turned upside down, that morlas had
degenerated and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgement of Him whom it denied" Page 61
"Perfume lives in time; it has its youth, its maturity and its old age. And only if it gives off a scent equally
pleasant at all three different stages of its life can it be called successfull" - Page 64
"For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini, a shimmering
flood of pure gold" - Page 68
"Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be
delivered to Baldini, he had done all he could to make sure that he would be the one to deliver it" - Page 71
"And as he walked behind Baldini, in Baldini's shadow - for Baldini did not take the trouble to light his way he was overcome by the idea that he belonged here and nowhere else, that he would stay here, that from
here, he would shake the world from its foundations" - Page 72
" 'I have the best nose in Paris, Maitre Baldini', Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. 'I know all the odours in
the world, all of them' " - Page 76
" 'I don't know what the formula is, maitre. I don't know that, but otherwise I know everything!' " - Page 78
“He imagined that he himself was such an alembic…..but better, a newer, an unfamiliar distillate
of those
exquisite plants that he tended within him, that blossomed there, their bouquet unknown to anyone but
himself, and that with their unique scent he could turn into a fragrant Garden of Eden, where life would
relatively bearable for him.” (I know this is relatively long, but you guys can pull out sections that are
relevant to your points).
“To be a giant alembic, flooding the whole world with a distillate of his making, that was the daydream to
which Grenouille gave himself up.”
“When it finally became clear to him that he had failed, he halted and fell mortally ill.”
“Baldini had recently gained the protection of people in high places; his exquisite scents had done that for
him.”
“The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent, truly the best thing that one could hope for, a
kind of carte blanche for circumventing all civil and professional restrictions; it meant the end of all business
worries and the guarantee of secure, permanent, unassailable prosperity.”
“Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands, so that posterity would not be
deprived of the finest scents of all time.”
He lay there ins his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids, but not with this treasures, his
knowledge, not a single formula for a scent.
Grenouille, who neither had any honour nor believed in any saints or in the poor soul of his mother, swore it.
(The three conditions made by Baldini which allows him to leave for Grasse).
He wanted to empty himself of his innermost being, of nothing less than his innermost being, which he
considered more wonderful than anything else the world had to offer.
He (Baldini) had always avoided so much as touching him, out of some kind of sanctimonious loathing, as if
there were some danger that he could be infected or contaminated.
In fact, not a day had passed in all those years when he had not been haunted by the notion that in some way
or other he would have to pay for having got involved with this man.
There was hardly a corner of Paris that was nto paralysed with people, not a stone, not a patch of earth that
did not reek of humans.
….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 it was the world in general that 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.
….Grenouille sensed a condensation of human stuff in the air and, reversing his original plan, decided to
avoid Orleans. He did not want to have this newfound
respiratory freedom ruined so soon by the sultry
climate of humans.
Grenouille – Page 121
o
“the plan unravelled in freedom, so to speak, as did all his other plans and intentions.”
Narrator about Grenouille – Page 124
o
“Everywhere, in every direction, humanity lay equally remote from him, and a step in any direction would
have meant closer proximity to human beings.”
Grenouille while in the cave – page 126-7
o
“Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother’s belly.”
Grenouille’s thoughts – Page 128
o
“the setting for these debaucheries was…the innermost empire where he had buried the husks of every
odour encountered since birth.”
Grenouille in the cave – Page 128-9
o
“And then all at once, the pent-up hate would erupt with orgasmic force – that was, after all, the point of the
exercise.”
Again in the cave – Page 129
o
“Grenouille…writhed with voluptuous delight and arched so high that he slammed his head against the roof
of the tunnel, only to sink back slowly and lie there lolling in satiation.”
Page 130-1
o
Massive section describing him as a God and his actions as God-like…too long to quote here.
About his existence outside the cave – Page 136
o
“And the hawks were already circling in the sky overhead, he ran back to his cave…there he was safe at last.”
Grenouille’s catastrophe – Page 138
o
“If he did not want to suffocate, he would have to breathe the fog in. And the fog was, as noted, an odour. His,
Grenouille’s, own body odour was the fog.”
141 – 160
“What he now felt was the fear of not knowing much of anything about himself.”
“His thesis was that life could develop only at a certain distance from the earth, since the earth itself
constantly emits a corrupting gas, a so-called fluidum letale… all living creatures therefore endeavour to
distance themselves from the earth by growing.”
“And suddenly he knew that it had not been the dove bouillon nor the ventilation hocus-pocus that had made
a normal person out of him, but solely these few clothes, the haircut and the little masquerade with
cosmetics.”
“The actual scent that he intended to produce: that was the scent of humanness. He wanted to acquire the
human-being odour… that he did not possess himself.”
“Only that basic odour, the primitive human effluvium, was truly familiar to them; they lived exclusively
within it and it made them feel secure.”
“He had been accustomed to people passing him and taking no notice of him whatever… 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.”
“These people… that he hardly hated them any more; but that his contempt for them was profound and
total… because they were nothing, and he was everything!”
“He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human, but superhuman, an angel’s scent, so
indescribably good and vital that whoever smelled it would be enchanted and his whole heart would have to
love him.”
“they would love him as they stood under the spell of his scent, not just accept him as one of them, but love
him to the point of insanity” (161)
“But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath.” (161)
“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.” (161)
“Down with orthodox medicine!” (165)
“Once they had gained confidence in him – and with the first breath, they gained confidence in him – they
believed everything” (166)
“Grenouille turned hot with rapture and cold with fear” (176)
“People will be overwhelmed, disarmed, helpless before the magic of this girl, and they will not know why.”
(177)
‘Although Druot was at least three times as strong as he, he did not once take a turn at stirring, but was
quite content to pour in more feather-light blossoms, to tend the fire, and now and then, because of the heat,
to go out for a drink.’ (pg. 181)
‘And occasionally he let this be known – of course, quite unassumingly and without abandoning his
submissive demeanour.’ (pg.185)
‘The souls of these noblest of blossoms could not be simply ripped from them, they had to be methodically
coaxed away.’ (pg. 186)
‘And even the method was not good enough completely to satisfy Grenouille’s nose, he knew quite well that
it would suffice a thousand times over for duping a world of numbed noses.’ (pg. 186)
‘He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.’
(pg. 188)
‘Unlike flowers, the animals he tried to macerate would not yield up their scent without complaints or with
only a mute sigh – they fought desperately against death, absolutely did not want to be stirred under, but
kicked and struggled, and in their fear of death created large quantities of sweat whose acidity ruined the
warm oil.’ (pg. 192)
‘She was still there, the incomparably beautiful flower, she had survived the winter unblemished, her sap
was running, she was growing, expanding, driving forth the most exquisite ranks of buds.’ (pg. 196)
“And now fear spread over the countryside. People no longer knew against whom to direct their impotent
rage.” Page 203
“Although the dogs normally yelped the moment they picked up the scent of any stranger, not one of them
had barked. The murderer seemed impalpable, incorporeal, like a ghost.”
“Fear had melted into thin air, no one spoke of the terror that had ruled both town and countryside only a
few months before. Not even the families involved spoke of it.” Page 206
“The murderer was not a destructive personality, but rather a careful collector.” Page 210
“Just as dusk fell and before the doors were closed, to sneak in under the cover of odourlessness, which like a
magic cape deprived man and beast of their perceptive faculties.” Page 218
“In the city’s aromatic garb, that veil of many thousands of woven threads, the golden thread was missing.”
Page 218
“The sound of the blow was a dull, grinding thud. He hated it. He hated it solely because it was a sound, a
sound in the midst of his otherwise soundless procedure.” Page 224
“He had never felt so fine in all his life, so peaceful, so steady, so whole and at one with himself – not even
inside his black mountain.” Page 226
“‘I thank you,’ he said softy, ‘I thank you, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, for being what you are!’ So touched was he
by himself.” Page 227
“This time fear had set its jaws too firmly into their souls.” Page 234
Perfume Quotations – From the start of Chapter 49 onwards – Richard Gale
“Such an extraordinarily abominable criminal deserved extraordinary treatment.”
“And then a miracle occurred. Or something very like a miracle, or at least something so incomprehensible,
so unprecedented, and so unbelibavle that everyone who witnessed it would have called it a miracle
afterwards if they had the notion to speak of it at all–which was not the case, since afterwards every single
one of them was ashamed to have had any part in it whatsoever.”
“it could not be, he could not be a murderer.
The man who stood at the scaffold was innocence personified.”
“They were overcome by a powerful sense of goodwill, of tenderness, of crazy, childish infatuation, yes, God
help them, of love for this little homicidal man ... These people were now pure liquid, their spirits and minds
were melted.”
“the Bishop ... for the first time in his life basking in religious rapture, for a miracle had occurred before their
very eyes, the Lord God had personally stayed the executioner’s hand by disclosing as an angel the very man
who had appeared a murderer.”
“The scheduled execution of one of the most abominable criminals of the age degenerated into the largest
orgy the world had seen since the second century before Christ.”
“Grenouille stood there and smiled... it seemed ... the most innocent, loving, enchanting, and at the same time
the most seductive smile in the world. But in fact it was not a smile, but an ugly, cynical smirk ... reflecting
both his total triumph and his total contempt.”
“He, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with no odour of his own ... raised without love, with no warmth of a
human soul, surviving solely on impudence and the power of loathing ... an abomination within and without–
he had managed to make the world admire him.
To hell with admire!
Love him!
Desire him!
Idolise
him!... He was Grenouille the Great!”
“clad in the perfume that made people love him ... the perfume he had thirsted to posses his whole life long ...
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 its achievement unbearable, because he did
not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew he had never found gratification in love, but
always only in hatred–in hating and being hated.”
“He had sprinkled himself all over with the contents of the bottle and all at once he had been bathed in
beauty like blazing fire.”
“When they finally did dare it [looking in one another’s eyes], at first with stolen glances and then candid
ones, they had to smile.
love.”
They were uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of