...talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.