Marguerite Yourcenar

Ce matin, l'idée m'est venue pour la première fois que mon corps, ce fidèle compagnon, cet ami plus sûr, mieux connu de moi que mon âme, n'est qu'un monstre sournois qui finira par dévorer son maître.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Overhead shone the great star of the constellation of Lyra, destined to be the polar star for men who will live tens of thousands of years after we have ceased to be.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

The world is big … May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life’s full measure.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

At this period of his existence, meat and blood, entrails, and all that had ever lived and breathed disgusted him as food, for an animal dies in pain just as man does, and it repelled him to be digesting death's agony.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.

— Marguerite Yourcenar