Ljiljana Sofijanic

“Little 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, Memoirs of Hadrian: And, Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian

“I was glad that our venerable, almost formless religions, drained of all intransigence and purged of savage rites, linked us mysteriously to the most ancient secrets of man and of earth, not forbidding us, however, a secular explanation of facts and a rational view of human conduct.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian: And, Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian

“There’s an intimacy in listening to somebody’s lies, I’ve always thought—you learn more about someone from the things they wish were true than from the things that actually are.”
― Jennifer duBois, A Partial History of Lost Causes

“That mysterious play which extends from love of a body to a love of an entire person has seemed to me noble enough to consecrate to it one part of my life.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian: And, Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian