Quotes from Cees Nooteboom

Language is something you inherit, it's never just you doing the talking, which helps when you're pretending.

Man is a sad mammal that combs its hair.

She had nothing to do all day ... but did it with the greatest possible speed.

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

As far as he could see, the world was moving, in an orderly capitalist fashion, toward a logical, perhaps provisional, perhaps permanent, end.

I am a hindrance to the world, and the world is a hindrance to me.

È sempre stato così, in tutti i miei viaggi: sono sempre un perdente, perché mi attacco troppo alle cose, o alle persone, e cosi il viaggio non è più un viaggio, ma un ripetuto addio Ho passato il tempo a dire addio e a ricordare, e a raccogliere indirizzi nelle mie agendine come piccole lapidi.

La mayoría de los muertos callan. Ya no dicen nada. Literalmente ya lo han dicho todo. Pero no sucede así con los poetas. Los poetas siguen hablando

E la strada è inquietudine, sempre e comunque, perché non c'è dubbio che ho capito male la vita e l'ho coltivata ancor peggio, ma tanto, mio caro, il risultato è lo stesso.

Alguien que duerme está al mismo tiempo cerca y lejos, de ti y de sí mismo, impotente y, sin embargo, poderoso precisamente por su ausencia.

Als wij geen namen zouden hebben, zou alles veel duidelijker zijn. Gewoon wat vluchtige materie met een beetje bewustzijn, verschijningen die komen en tamelijk snel weer verdwijnen. Door die namen denken we dat we heel wat zijn, we denken misschien zelfs dat ze ons beschermen, maar wie weet nog de namen van alle miljarden die verdwenen zijn?

Clocks served two purposes, in my opinion. The first was to tell people the time, and the second to impress upon me that time is an enigma, an intractable measureless phenomenon into which, out of sheer helplessness, we have introduced a semblance of order.

En el amor de ella se había mezclado ira, una ira que se correspondía con la suya. Morder, engullir, irrumpir en el otro de una vez por todas, devorar, aprovecharse, ese completo barullo desesperado de seres que quieren convertirse en el otro, que quieren ser una sola cosa y no pueden, siempre obligados a separarse el uno del otro.

Have you ever seen a woman canter over the hills in the twilight? Scandal sheets are no match for atavism.

There is no more pressure on my rudder, he once remarked. Plain sailing, no drag on other people either. A bit of dancing now and then, that's fine. I still see those girls, but I pretend they're paintings. Or advertisements. But that was only later.

Same hour, same set-up: woman plus tortoise, tortoise plus hibiscus, man plus gin and tonic. "To arm myself against the evening." She had found it perplexing, a man who feared the evening because he feared the night.

Het trage, tropische voortslenteren, de manier van lopen van de flaneur, is de beste manier om een land te leren kennen. Ik lees, ik schrijf en ik voel hoe het land langzaam in mij doorsijpelt - haast is fataal voor de reiziger.

Ik had wel duizend levens en ik nam er maar één.

the psychobabble spelled out in magazines, the imaginary divans we would never wish to lie on ourselves, all they do is hold up mirrors in which not a single truth is revealed, because the truth is always trounced by the lie. Was Heinz a liar by saying nothing? Did he drink because he never stopped telling lies?

En doordat ik met haar ben meegegaan, heb ik gezien hoe haar gezicht veranderde.

Unübersetzbar. Du weißt, Niederländisch ist eine Geheimsprache, die dazu bestimmt ist andere auszuschließen.

Ik heb het ongelukkige karakter van iemand die altijd achter de volgende heuvel wil kijken, en die nog steeds niet geleerd heeft dat daarachter weer een andere heuvel ligt.

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are

Winnen is niets, mijn jongen. Winnen laat geen sporen na. Winnen is bevrediging. Verliezen is leven.