Henny Vrienten was a bookworm. At home, on a small canal in Amsterdam, thousands of covers formed the figurative wallpaper of his study. Almost all of them were poetry and he had read them all. On the Waterlooplein he sometimes exchanged a few full boxes of old books with a seller who would then give him one gem in return. For example, a collection of poems a few centuries old, which was then carefully stored in a display cabinet.
He developed his predilection for language himself, he did not get it from home. Just as the love for music was not passed on to him from Hilvarenbeek and later Tilburg. “I developed both passions myself,” said Vrienten in an interview with in 2021 mezzathe Saturday magazine of this newspaper.