Marlene Van Niekerk

“Everything is important. To the smallest insect, even the mouldering tree, the deepest stone in the drift.”

“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.”

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

“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 Agaat SMILED!”

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

“Marriage is holy and it's private.”

“Nature is subtle and complex.”

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