The technique of a great seducer requires a facility and an indifference in passing from one object of affection to another which I could never have; however that may be, my loves have left me more often than I have left them, for I have never been able to understand how one could have enough of any beloved. The desire to count up exactly the riches which each new love brings us, and to see it change, and perhaps watch it grow old, accords ill with multiplicity of conquests.
Marguerite YourcenarA touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.
Marguerite YourcenarThe landscape of my days appears to be composed, like mountainous regions, of varied materials heaped up pell-mell. There I see my nature, itself composite, made up of equal parts of instinct and training. Here and there protrude the granite peaks of the inevitable, but all about is rubble from the landslips of chance.
Marguerite YourcenarTo stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tanatmount to constant travel: One is traveling with the earth.
Marguerite YourcenarOur true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.
Marguerite YourcenarLittle soul, gentle and drifting, guest and companion of my body, now you will dwell below in pallid places, stark and bare; there you will abandon your play of yore. But one moment still, let us gaze together on these familiar shores, on these objects which doubtless we shall not see again....Let us try, if we can, to enter into death with open eyes.
Marguerite Yourcenar