“I told myself that as long as there were books I could be sure of being happy.”
Work
<p>A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, <b>Simone de Beauvoir</b>'s <b>Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter</b> offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s.</p> <p>She vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent political time.</p>
Quotes
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Simone de Beauvoir
Canonical work source
“I told myself that as long as there were books I could be sure of being happy.”
“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...”
“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...”