Simone de Beauvoir

“The fear of death never left me; I couldn't get used to the thought; I would still sometimes shake and weep with terror. By contrast, the fact of existence here and now sometimes took on a g...”

“In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of...”

“What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.”

“In oppressing, one becomes oppressed. Men are enchained by reason of their very sovereignty; it is because they alone earn money that their wives demand checks, it is because they alone enga...”

“Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.”

“Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.”

“The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated...”

“I told myself that as long as there were books I could be sure of being happy.”

“Alone: for the first time I understood the terrible significance of that word. Alone without a witness, without anyone to speak to, without refuge. The breath in my body, the blood in my vei...”

“In a way, literature is true than life,' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you ki...”

“‎A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.”

“He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!”

“When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].”

“On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.”

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.”

“It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kil...”

“This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.”

“No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.”

“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.”

“Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”