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Quote by Cees Nooteboom

“When a memory fails to appear, it seems as though the time when it was created did not really exist, and maybe that is true. Time itself is nothing; only the experience of it is something. When that dies, it assumes the form of a denial, the symbol of mortality, what you have already lost before you lose everything. When his friend had said something similar to his father, his response had been, "If you had to retain everything, you’d explode. There’s simply not enough space for it all. Forgetting is like medicine; you have to take it at the right time.”

Quote by Cees Nooteboom

Work

Roads to Berlin

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Author

Cees Nooteboom
Cees Nooteboom

Cees Nooteboom is a Dutch novelist known for his unique literary style and profound insights into modern life. His works often explore themes of personal identity, memory, and time. more

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“. . .the sorrows of the heart yearn to be erased, for one final atonement finite and forgetting and whole—but time in its preserving will not permit forgetting; destroying only when we can no longer beg or argue with time to preserve the brief benisons a few moments longer than our sins”