Top 70 Hendrik Groen Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Old people and toddlers get along famously.”

— Hendrik Groen

2. “Misschien is het ontbreken van verplichtingen wel het belangrijkste kenmerk van het leven in een bejaardenhuis. Alles wordt voor je geregeld. Nadenken is niet nodig. Je kunt het leven als vla naar binnen lepelen, alle klontjes zijn eruit. Hap, slik, weg.”

— Hendrik Groen

3. “The point of living is the zest for life.”

— Hendrik Groen

4. “Bij het woord bejaardenhuis begon men zich allengs ongemakkelijk te voelen. ‘Bejaarden’ werden ‘ouderen’. Het bejaardenhuis werd een verzorgingshuis. Het verzorgingshuis werd een zorgcenrum. En sinds kort ben ik aangesloten bij een marktgerichte serviceorganisatie voor belevingsgerichte zorg op maat. Ik snap nu wel waarom de zorgkosten de pan uit rijzen.”

— Hendrik Groen

5. “A nation’s level of civilization can be measured by the way it treats its oldest and weakest citizens.”

— Hendrik Groen

6. “What if the paramedics don’t notice your DO NOT RESUSCITATE bracelet until they’ve got your ticker going again with a powerful electric shock? What then? Would they have to desuscitate you? What would people think?”

— Hendrik Groen

7. “As long as there are plans, there’s life.”

— Hendrik Groen

8. “Today is World Alzheimer’s Day. What are you supposed to do with that? Try to remember it?”

— Hendrik Groen

9. “His philosophy: the only point of being alive is to kill time as pleasantly as possible. The trick is not to take anything too seriously.”

— Hendrik Groen

10. “In contrast to what you’d expect, narrow-mindedness increases and tolerance lessens with the onset of old age. “Old and wise” is the exception rather than the rule.”

— Hendrik Groen

11. “A crematorium crisis: the coffin got stuck halfway in, so the oven door couldn’t close properly. The coffin caught fire and the smoke seeped into the chapel. The crematorium had to be evacuated. Anyone who hadn’t already been weeping emerged teary eyed. That’s what I call a spectacular way to say goodbye.”

— Hendrik Groen

12. “I’m determined to be a big spender in my old age. I want to empty my savings account before I no longer know what a savings account is for.” That’s the correct approach to dementia, if you ask me.”

— Hendrik Groen

13. “Ah yes, we live in uncertain times,” I chip in. “Life is a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture to follow.”

— Hendrik Groen

14. “I’ll give God one last chance: if at three o’clock this afternoon I suddenly find myself able to run the 100-yard dash in 12.4 seconds, I will return to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church. It’s a promise!”

— Hendrik Groen

15. “Fortunately they have started offering a liquid breakfast here. A liquid lunch as well, if necessary. It saves quite a bit of chewing.”

— Hendrik Groen

16. “So indeed, yesterday I attended Feel Good Fitness. It was my first time. And also my last. When it was over and the instructor – “Call me Tina” – gushed that I should definitely come again next week, I told her right then and there that once was enough.”

— Hendrik Groen

17. “Time is slipping through my fingers like a ripe banana.”

— Hendrik Groen

18. “Analysts of world events at our coffee table are not known for nuance, and are not deterred by lack of understanding either.”

— Hendrik Groen

19. “Killing yourself isn’t against the law. If you succeed, there’s nothing they can do to punish you for it. And if you fail, you could always ask for the death penalty, I suppose.”

— Hendrik Groen

20. “Young sunlight on old bones is one of the best antidotes to depression.”

— Hendrik Groen

21. “Falls are common in here. Sometimes people fall by tripping over a rug, as I did, but often they’ll just keel over for no good reason. Or they’ll sit down and miss the chair.”

— Hendrik Groen

22. “On parting, a kiss on both cheeks. I felt myself get all hot and bothered. Jesus, I’m eighty-three years old!”

— Hendrik Groen

23. “The procession of pear-shaped ladies in tight leggings parading through the halls every Monday on their way to the gym is extremely off-putting.”

— Hendrik Groen

24. “I am having the kind of day when you wake up totally shattered, do nothing all day, and go to bed at night exhausted from all the resting you’ve done.”

— Hendrik Groen

25. “That is the essence of the emptiness of life in here. There are no more goals. No exams to pass, no career ladders to climb, no children to raise. We are too old, even, to babysit the grandchildren.”

— Hendrik Groen

26. “The last Saturday of the month: bingo night. Geriatric gambling addicts competing for a box of cherry-liqueur chocolates. The head of the Residents’ Association takes it upon himself to call out the numbers. Don’t even think of opening your mouth while he’s at it. Whenever the number forty-four is called, Miss Slothouwer always says, “Hunger Winter” and the entire room looks up, perturbed.”

— Hendrik Groen

27. “In the elderly, that hormone surge can be just as great as in younger people. Says the newspaper. Which might explain why, when Eefje is near, I always find myself starting to stammer and stutter a bit.”

— Hendrik Groen

28. “His philosophy: the only point of being alive is to kill time as pleasantly as possible.”

— Hendrik Groen

29. “Not letting yourself grow lonely costs a great deal of – sometimes fruitless – effort.”

— Hendrik Groen

30. “They do make a molehill out of every bull in a china shop, don’t they,” said Mrs. Pot upon hearing about the latest poison attack in Syria.”

— Hendrik Groen

31. “Another pet catastrophe: Mrs. Schreuder accidentally vacuumed up her canary while she was cleaning its cage.”

— Hendrik Groen

32. “I don’t really mind Beatrix, but I do think it’s time for her to take a step back. She ought to devote more time to her painting and less time to her hairdresser. That stiff hairdo has irked me for years. I shouldn’t let it aggravate me, but I can’t help it.”

— Hendrik Groen

33. “In Norway they’re watching a TV show that’s just twelve hours of nonstop knitting: “from sheep to sweater.” To promote the notion of “Slow TV.”

— Hendrik Groen

34. “To celebrate the fact that I don’t have lung cancer, I lit up an extra cigar.”

— Hendrik Groen

35. “Sunday, April 14 What you might call a stellar day for our home yesterday: one stroke, one broken hip, and one near-asphyxiation on a butter cookie. The ambulance came and went three times in a single afternoon.”

— Hendrik Groen

36. “The past, they’re always going on about the past. Live in the present day for a change...”

— Hendrik Groen

37. “Afterwards Eefje and I moseyed down to the water to dip our toes into the North Sea. Arm in arm.”

— Hendrik Groen

38. “He is to be operated on tomorrow morning, and if everything goes well, he’ll wake up with only a couple of toes missing.”

— Hendrik Groen

39. “Mrs. Van Diemen is considering a face-lift. “What’s the plastic surgeon supposed to do with all the extra double chins?” Evert asked straight-faced.”

— Hendrik Groen

40. “An eighty-year-old man has managed to climb Mount Everest. I have enough trouble stepping up on the curb. It isn’t fair.”

— Hendrik Groen

41. “Only trivial annoyances still matter. “If Greece goes bankrupt the bingo prizes will probably get smaller,” was Mrs. Schouten’s analysis of the eurozone crisis.”

— Hendrik Groen

42. “Mrs. Sitta, seeing the toing and froing of ambulances, asked if bingo would be canceled. “Those of us who are fit shouldn’t have to suffer on account of those who are not,” she brazenly declared. You’d almost wish that at her next bingo game she would have a stroke, break a hip and choke to death on a cookie.”

— Hendrik Groen

43. “And after that trip, I’ll have to come up with another plan. As long as there are plans, there’s life.”

— Hendrik Groen

44. “Mrs. Aupers has taken to walking backward of late, because she thinks it makes her have to pee less often.”

— Hendrik Groen

45. “Loneliness can sometimes feel even worse when you’re with other people.”

— Hendrik Groen

46. “Mrs. Schaap didn’t just slip and fall, as reported; she was actually knocked down by a scooter. The driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been a bit too intent on his shopping basket.”

— Hendrik Groen

47. “Still, it’s important not to let practical considerations such as daunting toilet facilities stop you from venturing out. Experience has taught us that sad lesson: once old people stop doing something, they are unlikely ever to do it again.”

— Hendrik Groen

48. “Mrs. Vergeer pushed Mr. Vergeer down the stairs, wheelchair and all.”

— Hendrik Groen

49. “Almost every name in my address book is crossed out. Two that aren’t may or may not still be alive. Another doesn’t remember who I am.”

— Hendrik Groen

50. “Good Friday. When I was young we had to observe a moment of silence at three o’clock to think about poor Jesus. If in today’s Netherlands a father allowed his son to be nailed to the cross, our forensic psychiatrists would be at a loss as to what to do with the crazy psychopath.”

— Hendrik Groen