14 Quotes by Renée Vivien

Friendship is more dangerous than love, since its roots are stronger and go deeper than the roots of love. The anguish of friendship is more bitter than the anguish of love. Certain souls love friendship as others love love; they suffer through friendship as others through love, They have in their lives only one friendship as others have but a single love. It is when they lose friendship that they despair hopelessly.

I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning.

She smiled at me, and I felt a sudden burning tenderness for this creature so like fruit and roses. I desired her like blue water at dawn.

I venerate / the Woman whom I fear, the Wildness that I love.

I adore fairy stories. And I still have the wistful spirit of a child that listens wide-eyed to the marvellous tales told over and over during long winter evenings.

You yourself are the bizarre flower of some unknown dream.

I’ll adore you, as a drowned person does the sea.

I’m infected with the romantic fever. It began in my teens when I read Baudelaire in secret.

She embodies all the melancholy of autumn. She has learned to cherish with mournful tenderness a past she dares not remember.