Anja Stevic

“Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases.”
― Cees Nooteboom, Rituals

“Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say.”
― Cees Nooteboom

“I've never been a coward at heart, although I've always been a coward in action”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“He read a lot, but what he read, and not just that but everything he saw, films and paintings, he translated into feeling. And this feeling, which could not immediately be expressed in words, not yet and maybe never, that formless mass of sentiments, impressions, observations — that was his way of thinking. You could circle around it with words, but there always remained far more that was not expressed than was. And later, too, a certain resentment would take possession of him, toward those people who demanded precise answers, or pretended to be able to give them. It was, on the contrary, the very mystery of everything that was so attractive. You should not want to impose too much order on it. If you did, something would be lost irrevocably. That mysteries can become more mysterious if you think about them with precision and method, he did not yet know. He felt at home in his sentimental chaos. To chart it you had to be an adult, but then you were at once labelled, finished, and in effect already a little dead.”
― Cees Nooteboom, Rituals