# Quote — Patrick Süskind, Perfume

> What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes?

- Author: [Patrick Süskind](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind.md)
- Book: [Perfume](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_S%C3%BCskind#Part_1) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume/what-had-civilized

## More from this book

> He was very suspicious of inventions, for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume/he-was-very.md)

> Even knowing that to possess that scent he must pay the terrible price of losing it again, the very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic renunciation of both. For he had renounced things all his life. But never once had he possessed and lost.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume/even-knowing-that.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume/people-could-close.md)