Luc De Coster

“Here is someone not set up for life's working out poorly, let alone for the impossible.But who is set up for the impossible that is going to happen? Who is set up for tragedy and the incomprehensibility of suffering? Nobody. The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy-that is every man's tragedy.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections. We lie here in our hospital bed of the present (what nice clean sheets we get nowadays) with a bubble of daily news drip-fed into our arm. We think we know who we are, though we don't quite know why we're here, or how long we shall be forced to stay. And while we fret and write in bandaged uncertainty - are we a voluntary patient? - we fabulate. We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation; we call it history.”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“It is all just the universe doing its stuff, and we are the stuff it is being done to.”
― Julian Barnes, Levels of Life

“Liefde onder één dak veroordeelt zelfstandige mensen tot een huishouden, een gezinspolis, tuinslangen en vergelijkingen van bagagerekken voor wagens.”
― Saskia De Coster, Wij en ik