Hugo Claus

“In spring they lie flat at the first warmth, they ruin my summer and in autumn they smell of women.”

“My verses stand gawping a bit. I never get used to this. They've lived here long enough.”

“I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things.”

“Go now, verses, on your light feet, you have not trodden hard on the old earth where the graves laugh when they see their guests, the one corpse stacked on top of the other. Go now and stagger to her whom I do not know.”