Jente Posthuma > Quotes

“I'm either too much or too little. I'm terrible at dispensing the right dose of myself.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“No longer among us but never far from our hearts. In the eyes of the world, he was just one person but to us, he was the whole world.”
― Jente Posthuma, Waar ik liever niet aan denk

“This was shocking to me, because if the oldest person I knew understood even less about the world than I did, then how was it possible that other adults had all the answers? And what was the point of living longer if you weren't going to get any wiser?”
― Jente Posthuma, Waar ik liever niet aan denk

“Toen ik negen was wenste ik dat ik een prijs won die eruit bestond dat ik bij iedereen mocht binnenkijken. Overal waar ik wilde mocht ik aanbellen. De mensen die opendeden zouden achteruitdeinzen en zeggen: 'O, de prijswinnaar, gaat uw gang.' Ik zou op zoek gaan naar de familiefoto's. Meestal hingen ze aan de muur in de gang of stonden ze in de woonkamer op het dressoir of de vensterbank. Met mijn hand zou ik alle lachende monden bedekken en dan goed naar de ogen kijken.”
― Jente Posthuma, Mensen zonder uitstraling

“To be a natural presence, you shouldn't take up too much space, which I always found easy at the beginning of a friendship. It felt nice to reshape myself into precisely the right format until the moment came, usually once I'd shrunk to my minimum size, when I got moody. I always have to be careful what I say around you, my friends would say. Or if I suddenly lost my temper over something that hadn't previously angered me, they'd say, I don't have enough space for this. Then I would know that my presence was no longer a given and it was all my fault -- it wasn't fair to pretend I was something other than who I really was, to keep shapeshifting like some kind of Barbapapa. I'm either too much or too little. I'm terrible at dispensing the right dose of myself.”
― Jente Posthuma, Waar ik liever niet aan denk

“Cracks in the ground aren't always visible to the naked eye. Every movement has the potential to take you down.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“Suicide is an aggressive act, Elza recently said. If you’re capable of ending your own life, then you must at least have the capacity for violence.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“Hope is a drug. Only those who are prepared to die will know a life full of love. Those who are afraid of death will never penetrate the mystery of love.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“Your life will slip away if you don’t share it with anyone, she said. And I’d explained how you could hold onto a moment. But you can’t use it to hold onto people, I said, because they can always just get up and walk out of view.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“I thought about all the love we have inside us and how only a shred of that reaches the people we care about.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“En daarvoor?' vroeg hij.
'Toen sliep ik ook wel slecht, maar dat was omdat ik te veel alleen was en later, toen ik niet meer alleen was, omdat mijn vriend in een ander tempo ademhaalt dan ik.”
― Jente Posthuma, Mensen zonder uitstraling

“One dark December evening, I looked out the window and saw Leo turn into the street on his bike. I watched as he leant his bike against the facade of our building and searched for his keys in the pockets of his work overalls. Routine activities, as if it was nothing special that he actively chose every day to return to this apartment, to me. The downstairs neighbour's Christmas lights gave him a red aura. It's a miracle, I thought. With his keys in hand, Leo looked up. When he saw me standing there, his eyebrows shot up in surprise, as if I was the miracle.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“If you tell yourself, I’m going to remember this moment for the rest of my life, then you will remember it. You have to focus on your thoughts while simultaneously absorbing everything around you but if you do this, then the moment will stay with you forever, no matter how insignificant it may seem.”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About

“the urge to kill yourself was a sign of true intelligence and sensitivity, a desire to escape the suffocation of the ego. For those who recognised the pointlessness of everything, suicide — or total surrender — was the only alternative”
― Jente Posthuma, What I'd Rather Not Think About