Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair. Harry Mulisch More Quotes by Harry Mulisch More Quotes From Harry Mulisch 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 mightmemoriespast All cows were like other cows, all tigers like all other tigers - What on earth happened to human beings? Harry Mulisch cowshumansearth That question is too good to spoil with an answer. Harry Mulisch spoilanswers 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 readinglongbook If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful? Harry Mulisch absurdifsmeaningful But nothing exists in the future; it is empty; one might die at any minute. Harry Mulisch emptyminutesmight 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 menmeanideas 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 greatnessmenmean 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 flowerrootslaw 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 coursesuniquehumans 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 motherwarchildren I'm afraid love is just a word. Harry Mulisch love-is-just-a-wordlove-is
