Amsterdam Quotes

“Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“He called out to his fellow monks,'Come quickly I am tasting stars.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“‎These little contradictions are in all of us. They're in me at least. And so I forgot that I had been awake for 30 hours and kept walking, grateful to be a little boat full of water, still floating.”
― John Green

“You're always such a disappointment, Augustus. Couldn't you have at least gotten orange tomatoes?”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Thank you for letting me hijack your wish', I said.

'Thank you for wearing that dress which is like whoa," he said.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“...the curious Dutch classification gedogen, which means 'technically illegal but officially tolerated.”
― Russell Shorto, Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

“The rules of this house are written in water. I must either sink or swim.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“It was in December. I stood in the back of the tram, all the way in the back. It drove through the country and stopped and started again, it took hours, the countryside was endless. And the sky got bluer and bluer and the sun shone until it seemed like flowers would have to start sprouting out of the country bumpkins. And the red roofs in the villages and the black trees and the fields, most of them covered with straw, had it nice and warm, and the dunes sat bareheaded in the sun. And the road lay there, white and smarting, it couldn't bear the sunlight, and the glass panes of the village streetlamp flashed, they had trouble withstanding the glare too.
But I got colder and colder. And the tram ran as long as the sun shone. It's a long ride from Hillegom to Leiden and the days are short in December. By the end, a block of ice was standing there on the tram staring into the big stupid cold sun that was flaming red as though the revolution was finally starting, as though offices were being blown up all over Amsterdam, but still it couldn't bring a spark of life back to my cold feet and stiff legs. And it kept getting bigger and colder, the sun, and I got colder and stayed the same size, and the blue sky looked down very disapprovingly: What are you doing on that tram?”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“In Amsterdam. Eeuwen geleden het centrum van Europa, nu een gore provinciestad vol boeven, hoeren en ruïnes, maar door de burgemeester nog altijd voor een wereldstad gehouden.”
― Willem Frederik Hermans, Au Pair

“I feel younger than eighteen but burdened as a eighty-year-old.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Zolang dit bestaat, en ik het mag beleven, deze zonneschijn, die hemel waar geen wolk aan is, zo lang kan ik niet treurig zijn.”
― Anne M. Frank

“It's hard to argue over money when a girl flashes you her pussy.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“Prostitution is not exactly a reputable business over there either, even though the girls actually have to pay taxes on their earnings, and submit to regular health check ups. Even the prostitutes have universal healthcare over there. The benefit of legal prostitution is obvious: tax income for the city, healthier girls, and safety. In Amsterdam, each girl has an alarm button next to her bed that she can press if one of her "customers" tries to rape or hurt her. The police will arrive within minutes and protect the girl from harm.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“In order to hand me over she had to detach herself from herself, and afterward she never managed to get back inside herself and continued, long after the war ended, living outside herself and observing her life without any emotion.”
― emuna elon, House On Endless Waters

“And yet—and yet—she enchants me, intrigues me, draws me like sin to hellfire.
The infernal regions in the hollow between her breasts, wet and warm, dark and dense, offers delicious emptiness, captivating, overpowering, like the bottom of a well, the abyss beneath a hanging bridge on a dreary, gloomy day when all hope is gone and death is like the serpent in Eden.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“All we can do if we're lucky is stich up the mistakes other people make.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“That may be. But to decide that I was never going to live as a proper woman was not your choice to make.' 'What do you mean a proper woman?' 'A proper woman marries - she has children -' 'Then what does that make me? Am I not a proper woman? Last time I looked I certainly was.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Love your children, for they are the seeds that will make this city bloom.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Take care, take care. This city thrives! It's money gives you wings to soar. But it is a yoke on your shoulders and you would do well to take note of the bruise around your neck.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Believe it or don't believe it, Madame. But my feet are tired too. Bloody tired. Like a dead man's.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“The ink was secret nectar, for Marin isn't married.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“There are skeletons in this earth.”
― Corinne Duyvis, On the Edge of Gone

“His father in law, who was as old as the century, had just retired and was living in a country house in Gelderland. He would be coming by car. Saskia called and suggested that he pick them up--then they could get coffee together first. A typical country dweller, he replied that he wouldn't be caught dead in Amsterdam; what did they think, that he wanted to be attacked by a gang of hippie Provos? He laughed as he said it, but he didn't come, though God knows he'd faced worse dangers in his life.”
― Harry Mulisch, The Assault

“Two thousand five hundred. According to the documents Yoel has studied, that was the number of Jewish children hidden by Christian families during the war. Two thousand five hundred Jewish children, most of them from Amsterdam. According to Dutch law only those children with a surviving parent were eventually returned, while according to reality only those children whose surviving parent managed to find where they had been hidden were returned. Many children therefore remained with the families that had hidden them. Many of the hidden children were complete unaware that they were not the biological offspring of the people who raised them, Many are unaware of it to this days.”
― Emuna Elon, House On Endless Waters

“Between the whores' world and God's world, like a river dividing two empires, stretches an intense smell of urine.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“In his shabby jeans Vos never thought of himself as old. Nor did most of those he met as far as he could work out. They seemed to treat him like an odd adolescent, trapped in amber in his houseboat, listening to old rock, visiting the nearby coffee shop for a smoke from time to time, lingering over beers in Drie Vaten.”
― David Hewson, The House of Dolls

“It seemed as if doggystyle was her favorite position because she couldn't see who was behind her. She kept playing Snoop Dogg's song, “What's My Name?”. It seemed as if she was referring to my signature being forged and still being on the club and she knew perfectly. As if she was referring to all the dogs eager to breed in the video running after something after someone had let them out. As Snoop Dogg is magically transforming into a Doberman dog in the music video, just like the kind of dogs the Nazis had.
I just realize Martina’s dog, Chicha was all black and her cat Anouki was all black too, just like the night Sky, just like the dark, empty, cold Space. The total darkness the canvas, on which our planet is just a pinhead. This rock. This sizzling rock. Spinning. Turning. Leaning. Following the Sun. Lost in the infinite nothingness. Ain’t like a balloon which has nothing inside. All the nothing is outside, all the cold and dark and wide and empty and vile. All the dark forces all the nights, all the known universe and beyond, is located here, inside. Iron comes from Outer Space, it is not a local material on this planet. Each one of us has iron inside a “kickstart-molecule” located in our hearts. Without iron, there would be no life. Are we locals on this planet? To what degree? Since when?
I noticed three members of the Camorra in our street and the street parallel to it, casually passing by. I even nodded to one or two of them, since we already knew each other from the club where I hadn't been since Adam and I had our disagreement. Later that night, while I was waiting for Martina in vain, I noticed two to three of the Camorra's soldiers living a few houses down our street. From the rooftop, and our bedroom that was higher than theirs, I could see into their living room.
I couldn't help but wonder whether this was a mere coincidence, or if Adam and Martina had found our new home together, hanging out in Nico’s store, and so we moved on the Mountain of Jews, on purpose, perhaps, knowing that the Camorra’s men were living almost right in front of us. No accidents.
When I told Martina about the Camorra’s guys living across the street, Martina couldn’t have cared less.
It was almost as if she never considered her life being in danger in Barcelona, Europe, but only mine. I had felt before like Adam had used my skin to make money, while I was the one walking around the streets, spotting tourists usually having fun, not thinking about how I was working hard to make their “unreachable” happiness come true. This time, however, I felt both stuck in our home, feeling helpless to make Martina happy and the outside world offered her much better chances to have fun and find a rich guy or any other smoker club manager with her beauty.”
― Tomas Adam Nyapi, BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA

“Perhaps Western civilization, with the Amsterdam red-light district as its fetid symbol, does have something to answer for. Maybe these streets are typical of a society without modesty, morally unhinged.”
― Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance

“What do you say to those heading to Amsterdam? “Have a smooth ride.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“Cinemas always go way up in my estimation if their bar stocks interesting beers like Texels Skuumkoppe rather than just the big mass-market brands.”
― David Kintore, Silver Screen Cities Amsterdam & Brussels