Herman Koch

“We looked at each other. At that moment, I was also a hundred percent sure that Van Dieren and I were thinking…

— Herman Koch

The stupid woman is the one who thinks she doesn’t need any help.

— Herman Koch

“Christ, what an asshole!" Babette said.”

— Herman Koch

“Some people might say it's not smart to be so insecure about what you wear. But that's not how I see it.…

— Herman Koch

“… when Michel came home from school, for example, and everything was as it should be. My own voice, above all, asking…

— Herman Koch

“They all had to do something: they had to make a start in life; they had to go through life. Even though…

— Herman Koch

In one way or another, every parent is curious what their children... what are they doing when we don't see?... What double…

— Herman Koch

“Life as a widow, she thinks, will always be like this. The friends will go on proposing toasts for months (for years!).…

— Herman koch

“Er was een dokter in de zaal.”

— Herman Koch

“The smile remained suspended on her face, but it was as though it had been disconnected from the emotion behind it –…

— Herman Koch

“I let go of the pump as well now. I registered a sense of fatigue. And regret. It was the same fatigue…

— Herman Koch

“Is it life threatening?” they asked. They said it slightly sotto voce, but you could hear the thirst for sensation right through…

— Herman Koch

“happiness needs nothing but itself, it doesn’t have to be validated.”

— Herman Koch

Around here, we're as happy as God in France.

— Herman Koch

“...het was van dat weer dat je niet weet of het al avond wordt of dat de dag nog moet beginnen...”

— Herman Koch

“When we were still living at home, all he ever drank was cola, huge amounts of it; he had no problem knocking…

— Herman Koch

“Even when you act like nothing is happening, something happens—I don’t know how to put it any more clearly. It’s”

— Herman Koch

“That was how I looked at life sometimes, as a warm meal that was growing cold. I knew I had to eat,…

— Herman Koch

“All these heads, I thought. All these heads into which everything disappears.”

— Herman Koch

“It’s like a pistol in a stage play: when someone waves a pistol during the first act, you can bet your bottom…

— Herman Koch

“When the conversation turns too quickly to films, I see it as a sign of weakness. I mean: films are more something…

— Herman Koch

“Yet there was something else, something different about her this time, like a room where someone has thrown out all the flowers…

— Herman Koch

When the conversation turns too quickly to films,I see it as a sign of weakness.

— Herman Koch

“An overburdened liver sounds different from a healthy one. An overburdened liver groans. It groans and begs. It begs for a day…

— Herman Koch

“No, on the outside view there was nothing for anyone to notice about me. I remained one pillar of a trinity, another…

— Herman Koch