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Every invalid is a prisoner.

Marguerite Yourcenar

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Marguerite Yourcenar
Age: 84 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 7
Died: 1987
Died: December 17
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brussels
Belgium
Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour
Yourcenar
Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour
Marguerite de Crayencour
Invalid
Prisoner
Every

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It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.
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Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.
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I have come to think that great men are characterized precisely by the extreme position which they take, and that their heroism consists in holding to that extremity throughout their lives.
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Writing is a perpetual choice between a thousand expressions, none of which satisfies me, none of which, above all, satisfies me without the others. Yet I ought to know that only music permits a succession of chords.
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A touch of madness is, I think, almost always necessary for constructing a destiny.
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Any truth creates a scandal.
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Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.
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The 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.
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The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.
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Everything that we do affects our fate for better or for worse. The circumstances into which we are born also exert a tremendous influence we come into the world with debits and credits for which we are not responsible already posted to our account: this teaches us humility.
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the press is too often a distorting mirror, which deforms the people and events it represents, making them seem bigger or smaller than they really are.
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Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.
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The world is big … May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life's full measure.
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Want 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.
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Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey.
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Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.
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He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or to his genius, following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself.
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A being afire with life cannot foresee death in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.
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age means nothing. If anything I feel that I'm still a child: eternity and childhood are my ages.
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