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Quote by Marguerite Yourcenar

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Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar was a renowned French novelist, known for her historical novels. Her works are celebrated for their profound insight and rich imagination, with her most famous novel being 'Orlando'. Born on June 8, 1903, she passed away on December 17, 1987. more

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“I don't think I ever relinquish a person I have known, and surely not my fictional characters. I see them, I hear them, with a clarity that I would call hallucinatory if hallucination didn't mean something else ... A character whom we create can never die, any more than a friend can die ... Through [my characters] I've lived many parallel lives.”

IfsThinkingMeanPersonsCharacterDiesKnownClarityParallelsHallucinationsFictional CharacterParallel Lives
Author:Marguerite Yourcenar
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“One nourishes one's created characters with one's own substance: it's rather like the process of gestation. To give the character life, or to give him back life, it is of course necessary to fortify him by contributing something of one's own humanity, but it doesn't follow from that that the character is I, the writer, or that I am the character. The two entities remain distinct.”

GivingTwoCharacterHumanityCoursesProcessSubstanceEntityContributingGestation
Author:Marguerite Yourcenar
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“Every life is punctuated by deaths and departures, and each one causes great suffering that it is better to endure rather than forgo the pleasure of having known the person who has passed away. Somehow our world rebuilds itself after every death, and in any case we know that none of us will last forever. So you might say that life and death lead us by the hand, firmly but tenderly.”

KnowsWorldPersonsHandsMightLastsLife IsSufferingCausesPleasureKnownCasesForeverEndureLife And DeathOur WorldDeparturePassed Away
Book:With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey
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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.”

PeopleThinkingWantKindDesirePassionUnited StatesViolenceAchievePassionateCharacteristicsSubstitutesDesire To AchievePassionate Desire
Book:With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey
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