“But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes.”

“Sophia will not come. How mad he is to imagine, for a moment, that she might. Why should she risk everything for him? He can offer her nothing, only love.”

“Even when I succeed in getting there we only have an hour. At ten o’clock the night-watch trumpet sounds and those who are out return to bed. What a blameless, hardworking nation we are. In bed by ten, faithful husbands and faithful wives. It is no city for lovers, for those out late on the street are viewed with suspicion.”

“The only real failure is the failure to try, and the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment.”

“The world is chaotic. All artists know this, but they try to make sense of it. Sophia has made sense of it for him. She has stitched it together like the most beautiful cloak. Her love has sewn it together and they can wrap it around themselves and be safe from the world. Nobody can reach them.”

“It is a nice sunny day; his bunions have stopped hurting. There is always something to celebrate, in Gerrit’s view.”

“Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright it is not the end.”