Le véritable lieu de naissance est celui où l'on a porté pour la première fois un coup d'oeil intelligent sur soi-même: mes premières patries ont été… - Marguerite Yourcenar

Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.

...and I reminded myself that the reproach of intellectualism is often directed at the most sensitive natures, those most ardently alive, those obliged by their frailty or their excess of strength constantly to resort to the arduous disciplines of the mind.

The technique of a great seducer requires a facility and an indifference in passing from one object of affection to another which I could never have; however that may be, my loves have left me more often than I have left them, for I have never been able to understand how one could have enough of any beloved. The desire to count up exactly the riches which each new love brings us, and to see it change, and perhaps watch it grow old, accords ill with multiplicity of conquests.