One reads thousands of books, of poets, modern and ancient, as one meets thousands of people. What remains of it all is hard to tell.
Marguerite YourcenarWant of passion is, I think, a very striking characteristic of Americans, not unrelated to their predilection for violence. For very few people truly have a passionate desire to achieve, and violence serves as a kind of substitute.
Marguerite YourcenarLove is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
Marguerite YourcenarAnd nevertheless I have loved certain of my masters, and those strangely intimate though elusive relations existing between student and teacher, and the Sirens singing somewhere within the cracked voice of him who is first to reveal a new idea. The greatest seducer was not Alcibiades, afterall, it was Socrates.
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