Cees Nooteboom Quotes
Man has been thrown into the world. It had always made him think of Icarus and those other great tumblers, Ixion, Phaeton, Tantalus - all these jumpers without parachutes from a world of gods and heroes.
Quotes to Explore
-
It would be spiteful to put a Jellyfish in a trifle.
-
The final phone call that said we're going to be picked up again was just a miracle. We've overcome the impossible and we're still pushing forward. I know John is smiling and so happy that he gets to watch us on TV.
-
I just want to be myself and be real and be funny.
-
In a perfect world, I would be a painter. I love working with my hands. I don't get to do it as much as I like, but I am finding a way to make more time as life goes on because it's a really great outlet for me to express myself.
-
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.
-
The point of college is more to acquire skills than to acquire domain knowledge. One of the skills that is going to be most necessary: you have to be able to read with rigor and write with clarity. You have to be able to communicate. To make an argument, whether it's in a written piece or in front of a group of people.
-
I would actually like to play Bobby Brown. To me, he was just the King of R&B at one point.
-
I know I always had a lot of energy growing up and I had to put it somewhere. Theater allowed me to really feel things, to laugh, to cry, to explode outward. I could do anything and it was totally accepted and appreciated. If I hadn't gone into the theater, I probably would have been a psychotic killer.
-
I was happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences.
-
I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.
-
I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality.
-
Boxing's in my genes. I come from a fighting background. My dad and both my uncles were good boxers. I'm blessed with the art of war.
-
I am a medium. In the same way, doctors are mediums to bring treatment.
-
It’s very hard to prosper in this modern economy if you haven’t fully unleashed the potential of your people. And your people’s potential, in part, derives from their ability to express themselves and express new ideas, to try to right wrongs that are taking place in the society.
-
Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
-
I am really overwhelmed. Everywhere both in Internet and in other media, I have been asked for a message. I was thinking what message I can give to the people of the country at this juncture.
-
You’ve been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it’s about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what’s real.
-
Usually, I'll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I'll have to run home to write it all down.
-
President Clinton knew the course and goes, 'Here's what you want to do here.' By the fourth hole, you wanted to hit him with your putter.
-
Accuracy and integrity are the foundation of the College Board. The students who take our exams expect us to operate with the highest standards and we expect that of ourselves and our partner firms.
-
Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.
-
The worst thing about being the laureate has been the attitude of a tiny minority of adults who haven't liked some of the things I'm supposed to have said and who have used it as an opportunity to be verbally abusive and nasty, but I haven't let it rule my world!
-
If he descended from heaven today the great warrior who beat the money-traders you would shout your "crucifige!" and nail him to the cross which he himself bore. But he mildly smiles upon your hate: "The truth will prevail, even if the bearer falls; the faith will live, for I give my life ... and stand tall at the cross for all warriors of the world.
-
Man has been thrown into the world. It had always made him think of Icarus and those other great tumblers, Ixion, Phaeton, Tantalus - all these jumpers without parachutes from a world of gods and heroes.
