Daan > Daan's Quotes

“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity."

[Letter to Max Brod, July 5, 1922]”
― Franz Kafka

“I must recall the precise feelings that have nurtured the present circumstances, when nothing at all from outside interfered, not even thoughts of time past, present, or time future, when doubts of my own reality have dwindled away. Isn’t there a moment caught between two moods, that space within, separated from life, as well as death, when the sun is faced without blinking, when eternity lies here inside; no division whatsoever, simply a series of circular motivations. But these hands with their veins from a leaf, there is no separation, only a distasteful similarity. Why though search for proof? Surely I’m not philosopher to analyse the value of reality as opposed to idea, and what is gained by delving into such linguistic labyrinths? Definitely the supreme action is to dispose of the mind, bring reality into something vital, felt seen, even smelt.”
― Ann Quin, Berg

“Tom te tom tom, tom te tom.' zong Frits in zichzelf, 'het gaat slecht, verder gaat het goed.”
― Gerard Reve

“Ik adem, en ik beweeg, dus ik leef. Is dat duidelijk? Welke beproevingen ook komen, ik leef.'
Hij zoog de borst vol adem en stapte in bed. 'Het is gezien,' mompelde hij, 'het is niet onopgemerkt gebleven.' Hij strekte zich uit en viel in een diepe slaap.”
― Gerard Reve, De avonden

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album

“Ik wil de rots niet, maar de branding. Ik ben een schip in beweging; voor mij is juist een rots een levensgroot gevaar.”
― Marijke Schermer, In het oog

“Hoe meer ze naar mijn gevoelens vragen, hoe minder ik er blijk te hebben. Alsof ze me met elke vraag ernaar ervan beroven.”
― Marijke Schermer, In het oog