“Well, I am something, Ma, you hissed, I am not nothing, 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, Agaat“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, Agaat“In a state of pseudo-death you restore your substance.”
Marlene Van Niekerk, Agaat“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!”
Marlene Van Niekerk, Agaat“Everything is important. To the smallest insect, even the mouldering tree, the deepest stone in the drift.”
Marlene Van Niekerk, Agaat“...a butterfly is like the soul of a person, it dries out in captivity.”
Marlene Van Niekerk, Agaat“..we all have to do things in this life that we don't like..”
Marlene Van Niekerk, Agaat