Quote
"For the sake of having her with me I had to tolerate the shadow of a tracksuited poet, but one who has taken the guise of a man in love will indiscriminately eat and drink platefuls of thistles, barrels of vinegar."
"My tears are only triggered by kitsch."

Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria "Cees" Nooteboom was a Dutch novelist, poet and journalist. After the attention received by his novel Rituals, which won the Pegasus Prize, it was the first of his novels to be translated into an English-language edition, published in 1983 by Louisiana State University Press of the United States. LSU Press published his two earlier novels in English in the following
"For the sake of having her with me I had to tolerate the shadow of a tracksuited poet, but one who has taken the guise of a man in love will indiscriminately eat and drink platefuls of thistles, barrels of vinegar."
"That is the difference between gods and men. Gods can change themselves; humans can only be changed."
"It would be like this when you were really old-a city full of imaginary houses and women, rooms and girls. (Page 125)"
"We will feel the draft blowing through the cracks in the structure of causality."
"The world is a never-ending cross-reference."
"Besides, I simply had to get back to my books right away, because the company of most people, once the predictable events have taken their course, does not inspire conversation on my part."