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Amsterdam Quotes

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Amsterdam Quotes

“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.”

ChildrenWwiiJewishAmsterdamJewish History
Book:House On Endless Waters
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“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.”

MurderIsraelConspiracyMarijuanaSpainMafiaAmsterdamCamorraCoffeeshopVibe
Book:BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA
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“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?”

DecemberAmsterdamTram
Book:Amsterdam Stories
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“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.”

SexProstitutionAmsterdamSex WorkProstitutesSex WorkersProstitute QuotesLegalize It
Book:Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York
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“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.”

FictionShort StoryPhilippinesFilipinoAmsterdamDiasporaManilaRed Light DistrictThe Last Temptation
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“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.”

DutchAmsterdamThe SixtiesGelderland
Book:The Assault
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“The evolution of Polak's ideas had a great deal to do with the fact that he was a Jew. Like Jews elsewhere, those in Amsterdam kept a low profile; they were predominantly workers, and so they were attracted to the socialist program of fairness and decency. But they were deeply repelled by the idea of revolution. They knew from centuries of experience which group would become the scapegoat if things turned out badly. Polak read widely and while in England was influenced by the Fabian Society, which promoted a moderate path between socialism and capitalism. He cofounded the Dutch diamond worker's union (whose members were overwhelmingly Jewish) and became its chairman. From that perch he was able to put his ideas into practice. He wanted not only decent housing for workers but something more: beauty, a genuinely good life.”

AmsterdamTrade UnionsHenri Polak
Author:Russel Shorto
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“the smell of canals and cigarette smoke, all the people sitting outside the cafés drinking beer, saying their r's and g's in a way I'd never learn. I missed the future. Obviously I knew even before this recurrence that I'd never grow old with Augustus Waters. But thinking about Lidewij and her boyfriend, I felt robbed. I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up you can't make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again. That is probably true even if you live to be ninety.”

LoveFutureAmsterdamThe Fault In Our StarsUnsated
Book:The Fault in Our Stars
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“Opinions differ on the question of whether a golden age is something you can experience while it's happening or whether it only comes into focus on reflection...no matter how grand and prosperous and momentous the time in which you are living may be, its grandeur is inevitably stained by the incessant drabness of the present.”

HollandAmsterdamNetherlandsDutch History
Book:Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City
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“The storm broke then with a vivid flash of lightning and a great rumble of thunder which drowned every other sound. The Baron turned up the collar of his Burberry. ‘You go down that side, I’ll search this— we’ll find him, Becky. You’re not afraid of the storm?’ She was terrified, but her terror was quite wiped out by anxiety for Bertie. She shook her head and started off down the deserted street, peering through the pelting rain, searching the canal as well as every doorway and alley.”

StormsAmsterdamAnimal Rescuers
Book:The Promise of Happiness
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“Hij genoot van de verschillende afvalcontainers die overal stonden, van de ingeblikte groenten in de ziekenhuiskoele winkels – supermarkten werden ze genoemd –, hij genoot van de trams en hun heupdans die de passagiers heen en weer schudde wanneer zij klingelend een bocht maakten, hij genoot van de bomen die overal voor schaduw zorgden, compleet met een kroost van groene houten banken en een vuilnisbak, hij genoot van de grachten, die rimpelend een wiegenlied voor hem zongen, hij genoot van de vooroverhellende en schuine grachtenpanden, hij genoot van de standbeelden bedekt met patina en duivenuitwerpselen, hij genoot van het bruisen van zo veel mensenlevens, hij genoot van de pleinen en de onberispelijke kantoorgebouwen met ramen waarin het universum weerkaatste, van de vele straatbelichting, de neonreclames – de stad was 's nachts een ware boomgaard van kleurig neon –, hij genoot van de markten waar het rook naar gezouten vis, gebrande noten en kaas, van de vele eethuizen die met de mensen mee waren geëmigreerd, hij genoot van de fietsers die elke verkeersregel overtraden, hij genoot van het stille lawaai en de zinderende sensualiteit die de meisjes uitwasemden en van verliefde stellen die hun liefde op straat uitstalden voor voorbijgangers, hij genoot van het wolkenheer, van de regens en de buien, van de natte zonnen op regendagen als beslagen brillenglazen, van de regenplassen en hun weerspiegelingen, hij genoot van de chaos, van de beierd ver weg tussen het hooi van zijn doofheid, hij genoot van de duiven, van de zwervers met hun winkelwagentjes vol onbegrijpelijke huisraad, van de drankschuiten die over de effen straten kapseisden, zijwaarts hellend door een overbelaste lever, hij genoot van de sissende venters van genotsmiddelen, hij genoot van de drukke winkelstraten waar alles wat men nodig had te koop was en alles wat men niet nodig had, hij genoot van de rosse buurten en de uitstalling van vrouwelijk vlees, dat niet aan duitloze hem besteed was, van de vele kroegen en bars waarin klanten dronken en kwetterden en zich ontlastten zoals de vogels in de johannesbroodboom van Cheira en Heira, hij genoot van de welvaart die de mensen zichtbaar goeddeed, vooral de vrouwen met hun papieren tassen vol nieuwe aankopen in de weekeinden en hun ontspannen roddels en koetjes en kalfjes op terrassen, op vensterbanken achter de geraniums, hij genoot van de broeders die steeds in aantal toenamen en hem eerbiedig bejegenden wanneer hij hun bedwelmende koopwaar weigerde, met eerbied want hij was een van hem en het deed hem goed om te zien dat ze hoe dan ook werk hadden gevonden, hij genoot van de levendige rusteloosheid van dit alles, van de Amstel die voor verfrissing zorgde en het land bevloeide en het meest genoot hij van de ultieme wonderen in het park, dat hij nu betrad.”

CityAmsterdamLong Sentence
Book:Paravion
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