All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!

Anatole France (1844-1924) French poet, journalist, novelist, Nobel Laureate [pseud. of Jaques-Anatole-François Thibault]

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Part 2, ch. 4 (1881) [tr. L. Hearn (1890)]
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