Dutch Author Quotes

Harry Mulisch

Multatuli

Cees Nooteboom

Jan de Hartog

J. Bernlef

Guus Kuijer

Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.

Father was afraid of laughter and joy. He was particularly afraid of ridicule. He was afraid that someone would say that humans are descended from apes. Or that the earth is much older than four thousand years. Or that someone would ask where Noah go his polar bears from. Or that someone would swear. Father was terrified.

Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair.

Reason offers us many possibilities at once. Intuition infallibly chooses the best. Remember this and you cannot err; you will always make the right choice.

Principles are things which one calls upon to avoid something unpleasant.

I have never cared much for people. Most of them are cowards, conformists, muddleheads, moneygrubbers, and they infect each other.

I seem to lose words like another person loses blood. Everyday, every day there's something gone. It leaks everywhere.