The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession

Metaphor is the currency of knowledge. I have spent my life learning incredible amounts of disparate, disconnected, obscure, useless pieces of knowledge, and they have turned out to be, almost all of them, extremely useful.

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All molecules pulse with vibrations. They shimmer and wiggle and sing with the vibrations of the electron strings that hold them together, which means molecules are, oddly enough, a sort of musical instrument.

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I find that physics is like oysters—it’s best first thing in the morning—so I always have these physics books in the loo.

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It makes everyone nervous, smelling,” he says re the vial, “because smell is such a strong sense.

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