Life
Van Heijenoort was born in Creil, France. His family's financial circumstances were difficult as his Dutch immigrant father died when van Heijenoort was two. He nevertheless acquired a powerful traditional French formal education, to which his French writings attest. (He also published in Spanish.) Although he eventually became a naturalized American citizen, he visited France twice a year from 1958 until his death, and remained very attached to his French extended family and friends.
Read more about this topic: Jean Van Heijenoort
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share
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“The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.”
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