Harry Mulisch Quotes

• But nothing exists in the future; it is empty; one might die at any minute.

  Harry Mulisch

  Might, Empty, Minutes

  Harry Mulisch (2011). “The Assault”, p.151, Pantheon

  7 Copy quote

• Besides, whoever keeps the future in front of him and the past at his back is doing something else that's hard to imagine. For the image implies that events somehow already exist in the future, reach the present at a determined moment, and finally come to rest in the past. But nothing exists in the future; it is empty; one might die at any minute. Therefore such a person has his face toward the void, whereas it is the past behind him that is visible, stored in the memory.

  Harry Mulisch

  Memories, Past, Might

  11 Copy quote

• All cows were like other cows, all tigers like all other tigers - What on earth happened to human beings?

  Harry Mulisch

  Earth, Cows, Humans

  Harry Mulisch (2003). “Siegfried”, Viking Press

  11 Copy quote

• If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful?

  Harry Mulisch

  Meaningful, Absurd, Ifs

  9 Copy quote

• That question is too good to spoil with an answer.

  Harry Mulisch

  Answers, Spoil

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  10 Copy quote

• Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair.

  Harry Mulisch

  Hair, Names, Conversation

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  8 Copy quote

• A man who has never been hungry may possess a more refined palate, but he has no idea what it means to eat.

  Harry Mulisch

  Mean, Men, Ideas

  Harry Mulisch (2011). “The Assault”, p.43, Pantheon

  7 Copy quote

• I never understood how anyone could feel small compared with the universe. After all, man knows how overwhelmingly large it is, and a few others things besides, and that means he is not small. The fact that man has discovered all this precisely proves his greatness.

  Harry Mulisch

  Mean, Greatness, Men

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  6 Copy quote

• If written in the three-letter words of the four-letter alphabet,a human being is determined by a genetic narrative long enough to fill the equivalent of 500 Bibles.In the meantime human beings have discovered this for themselves. That's right. They have uncovered our profoundest concept -- namely, that life is ultimately reading. They themselves are the Book of Books.

  Harry Mulisch

  Book, Reading, Long

  6 Copy quote

• Perhaps, he thought, true pure love, like all flowers, flourished best with its roots in muck and mud. Perhaps that was a law of life that held everything together.

  Harry Mulisch

  Flower, Law, Roots

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

• In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what—apart from the eternal innocence of animals—offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pietà: a mother with her newly dead child on her lap.

  Harry Mulisch

  Mother, Children, War

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

• All human beings were of course unique, and they only discovered that when someone else fell in love with them or when no one ever fell in love with them.

  Harry Mulisch

  Unique, Humans, Courses

  Harry Mulisch, Paul Vincent (1997). “The Discovery of Heaven”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

• I'm afraid love is just a word.

  Harry Mulisch

  Love Is, Love Is Just A Word

  Hollands Diep Magazine Interview, July/August 2010.

  6 Copy quote

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin