In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both its weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me.

Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven.

Jeune, vigoureux, plein de santé, de sécurité, de confiance en moi et aux autres, j'étais dans ce court, mais précieux moment de la vie, où sa plénitude expansive étend pour ainsi dire notre être par toutes nos sensations, et embellit à nos yeux la nature entière du charme de notre existence.

It was good to be alive; it was better to be young; it was best of all to be in love.

There was something strange in my sensations, indescribably new and incredibly sweet. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be tenfold more wicked and the thought delighted me like wine.

I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young.
And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking, and you didn’t quite see the street you were in, and didn’t quite hear everything that was said to you.
You’re just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?

I am young, yes, but what I have learned is that love, the beauty of it, the joy of it and yes, even the pain of it, is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being. And we deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise.

In those early amorphous years of life, when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and everything was Forever

She tried, sometimes, to remember how it had been to be young. Or even, not quite so old.

Like when you're young, you figure you're unique. I was young.

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

When we're young, we notice things that are young, like ourselves. New grass on old graves. New leaves on old trees

It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.

The most delicious sensation of all is the re-birth of healthy human love. Spring coming back to Earth!