Frank

“That propensity of lifting every problem from the plane of the understandable by means of some sort of mystic expression, is very Russian. I knew her well enough to have discovered her scorn for all the practical forms of political liberty known to the western world. I suppose one must be a Russian to understand Russian simplicity, a terrible corroding simplicity in which mystic phrases clothe a naive and hopeless cynicism. I think sometimes that the psychological secret of the profound difference of that people consists in this, that they detest life, the irremediable life of the earth as it is, whereas we westerners cherish it with perhaps an equal exaggeration of its sentimental value. But this is a digression indeed....”
― Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

“Surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have.'
'I don't see why. Everyone has to give everything they have eventually. They have to die. Dying can't be called a success.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Verder ken ik 'r een, die is uit Oss afkomstig; nou, meneer weet hoe 't dáár toegaat, in Oss, daar vermoorden ze hun eigen vader als ze jarig zijn. Hij heeft me wel 's verteld uit z'n jeugd, hoe de jongens erop uitgingen, op winteravonden, om ieder die ze tegenkwamen, en 't hoefden niet eens vijanden te zijn, met hun kop in 'n plas te houden tot ze gestikt waren. Alleen maar voor de lol. Dat soort lui pleegt 'n moord zoals u uw neus snuit...”
― Simon Vestdijk, Pastorale 1943

“What seemed delicacy in him was usually a way of avoiding trouble; what seemed like sympathy was the instinct to prevent trouble before it started. It was hard to see what growing older would mean to such a person. His emotions, from lack of exercise, had disappeared almost altogether. Adaptability and curiosity, he had found, did just as well.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop