I want to be a traditional king first and foremost, building on the tradition of my predecessors standing for continuity and stability in this country, but also a 21st-century king who can unite, represent and encourage society.

I'm not a protocol fetishist. It's more important to me that people feel at ease when I'm with them.

Here in the Netherlands there are towns that take part in the throwing of toilet bowls for a laugh.

Sometimes it just means flying from Bogota to New York via Amsterdam to have a day with your kids. When we spend time with them, I think we do our utmost best to be really with them - on vacations or during weekends or even at breakfast in the morning.

Not less important than the brilliant hue that lead a nation or a literature to the fresh achievements, are the unknown many whose patient efforts keep the world from running backward; who guard and maintain the ancient values, even if they do not conquer new; whose inconspicuous triumph it is to pass on what they inherited from their fathers, unimpaired and undiminished, to their sons. Enough, for almost all of us, if we can hand on the torch, and not let it down; content to win the affection, if it may be, of a few who know us and to be forgotten when they in their turn have vanished. The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its stars.

Marriage is about love, but it is not first and foremost about love. First and foremost, marriage is about continuity and transmission.