"In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. . ." Part One, Chap. 1, p. 3

"'You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to to with the devil or not, Father Terrier. That's not for such as me to say. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn't smell the way children ought to smell.'" Part One, Chap. 2, p. 11

"Looked at objectively, however, there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. As he grew older, he was not especially big, nor strong - ugly, true, but no extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. He was not aggressive, nor underhanded, nor furtive, he...