Marlene Van Niekerk

...a butterfly is like the soul of a person, it dries out in captivity.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

And I will close my eyes and prepare myself so that they can unscrew my head and allow the map to slip into my lacunae. So that I can be filled and braced from the inside and fortified for the voyage. Because without my world inside me, I will contract and congeal, more even than I am now, without speech and without actions and without any purchase upon time.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

Everything is important. To the smallest insect, even the bouldering tree, the deepest stone in the drift.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

First smile!! An unseasonal little shower of rain fell here, and a lot of butterflies drowned, so we put them in the sun, and they came back to life, and flew up and then Ageist SMILED!

— Marlene Van Niekerk

In a state of pseudo-death you restore your substance.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

Marriage is holy and it's private.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

Nature is subtle and complex.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

.we all have to do things in this life that we don't like.

— Marlene Van Niekerk

Well, I am something, Ma, you hissed, I am not anything, I am somebody and I know what I want from life and I know what to do to get it. I will provide for myself.

— Marlene Van Niekerk