- choice of words: Dutch are "primates"
- hearing a Frenchman describe my country
- how talking about de Zuiderzee puts it in a very specific period for me
p27. "To achieve notoriety it is enough, after all to kill one's concierge. Unhappily, this is usually an ephemeral reputation, so many concierges are there who deserve and receive the knife."
p31. "Friendship is less simple. It is long and hard to obtain, but when one has it there's no getting rid of it; one simply has to cope with it."
p33. "A woman who used to chase after me, and in vain, had the good sense to die young. What room in my heart at once! And when, in addition, it's a suicide! Lord, what a delightful commotion! One's telephone rings, one's heart overflows, and the intentionally short sentences yet heavy with implications, one's restrained suffering and even, yes, a bit of self-accusation!"
p48. "I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty."
p50. "This I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality."
p55. "What does it matter, after all, if by humiliating one's mind one succeeds in dominating everyone? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression."
p57. "My relationship with women was natural, free, easy, as the saying goes. No guile in it except that obvious guile which they look upon as a homage. I loved them, according to the hallowed expression, which amounts to saying that I never loved any of them. I always considered misogyny vulgar and stupid, and almost all the women I have known seemed to me better than I. Nevertheless, setting them so high, I made use of them more often than I served them. How can one make it out?"
p63. "Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world."
p66. "I couldn't deceive myself as to the truth of my nature. No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures - have I read that or did I think it myself, mon cher compatriote?"
p67. "Be it said, moreover, that as soon as I had rewon that affection I became aware of its weight. In my moments of irritation I told myself that the ideal solution would have been the death of the person I was interested in. Her death would, on the one hand, have definitely fixed our relationship and, on the other, removed its compulsion. But one cannot long for the death of everyone or, in the extreme, depopulate the planet in order to enjoy a freedom that cannot be imagined otherwise. My sensibility was opposed to this, and my love of mankind."
p72. "We are reaching the dike. We'll have to follow it to get as far as possible from these too charming houses. Please, let's sit down. Well, what do you think of it? Isn't it the most beautiful negative landscape? Just see on the left that pile of ashes they call a dune here, the gray dike on the right, the livid beach at our feet, and in front of us, the sea the color of a weak lye-solution with the vast sky reflecting the colorless waters. A soggy hell, indeed! Everything horizontal, no relief; space is colorless, and life dead."
p76. "Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgottne, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood - never!"
p83. "A liking for truth at any cost is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing resists. It's a vice, at times a comfort, or a selfishness. Therefore, if you are in that situation, don't hesitate: promise to tell the truth and then lie as best you can. You will satisfy their hidden desire and doubly prove your affection."
p120. "I have ceased to like anything but confessions, and authors of confessions write especially to avoid confessing, to tell nothing of what they know. When they claim to get to the painful admissions, you have to watch out, for they are about to dress the corpse."
