In those days we saw every sort of object as though it were one of those tiny handkerchiefs from which a conjuror can produce silk scarfs, streamers, flags, and yards of ribbon. A cup of...

But an action which wants to serve man ought to be careful not to forget him on the way, if it chooses to fulfill itself blindly, it will lose its meaning or will take on...

Mais de toute façon, engendrer, allaiter ne sont pas des activités, ce sont des fonctions naturelles; aucun projet n’y est engagé; c’est pourquoi la femme n’y trouve pas le motif d’une affirmation hautaine de son...

Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise.” (p. 248)

Weakness’ is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes.

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.

As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of...

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

To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it’s hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody.

A woman’s situation, i.e those meanings derived from the total context in which she comes to maturity, disposes her to apprehend her body not as instrument of her transcendence, but “an object destined for another.

Art, literature, and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim, one must first unequivocally posit oneself as a freedom. The restrictions...

To re-establish man at the heart of his destiny is, they claim, to repudiate all ethics. However, far from God’s absence authorizing all license, the contrary is the case, because man is abandoned on the...

Dès l’origine de l’humanité, leur privilège biologique a permis aux m les de s’affirmer seuls comme sujets souverains; ils n’ont jamais abdiqué ce privilège (…) Condamnée à jouer le rôle de l’Autre, la femme était...

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.

Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom....

Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male’s superiority.

All she had to do was make the simplest of gestures – open her hands and let go her hold. She lifted one hand and moved the fingers of it; they responded, in surprise and...

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 from her.

A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to...

Constituye una paradoja criminal rehusar a la mujer toda actividad pública, cerrarle las carreras masculinas, proclamar en todos los dominios su incapacidad y confiarle, al mismo tiempo, la empresa más delicada y más grave de...

Therefore the misfortune which comes to man as a result of the fact that he was a child is that his freedom was first concealed from him and that all his life he will be...

On s’empresse de les décharger de toute t che pénible et de tout souci: c’est les délivrer du même coup de toute responsabilité. On espère qu’ainsi dupées, séduites par la facilité de leur condition, elles...

Le sens de la toilette féminine est manifest: il s’agit de se ‘parer’ et se parer c’est s’offrir; les feministes hétérosexuelles se sont montrées naguère sur ce point aussi intransiseantes que les lesbiennes: elles refusaient...

I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books,...

Le privilège économique détenu par les hommes, leur valeur sociale, le prestige du mariage, l’utilité d’un appui masculin, tout engage les femmes à vouloir ardenment plaire aux hommes. Elles sont encore dans l’ensemble en situation...

Art is an attempt to integrate evil.

The day had been spent in the expectation of these hours, and now they were crumbling away, becoming, in their turn, another period of expectancy…It was a journey without end, leading to an indefinite future,...

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...

But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but...

Si la mujer es prosaica, casera, bajamente utilitaria, se debe a que le imponen que consagre su existencia a preparar alimentos y limpiar deyecciones. No será de ahí de donde podrá extraer el sentido de...

L’ideologie chrétienne n’a pas peu contribué à l’oppression de la femme.

Une éthique véritablement socialiste, c’est-à-dire qui cherche la justice sans supprimer la liberté, qui impose aux individus des charges mais sans abolir l’individualité, se trouvera fort embarrassée par les problèmes que pose la condition de...

On nous exhorte: ‘Soyez femmes, restez femmes, devenez femmes.’ Tout être humain femelle n’est donc pas nécessairament une femme; il lui faut participer à cette réalité mystérieuse et menacée qu’est la féminité. (…) Celle-ci est-elle...

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Tous les enfants essaient de compenser la séparation du sevrage par des conduites de séduction et de parade; on oblige le garçon à dépasser ce stade, on le délivre de son narcissisme en le fixant...

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

I should like to be the landscape which I am contemplating, I should like this sky, this quiet water to think themselves within me, that it might be I whom they express in flesh and...

‎A day in which I don’t write leaves a taste of ashes.

Trudging alone along that black road, sometimes in the teeth of wind and rain, and watching the white distant gleam of convolvulus through the park railings, gave me an exhilarating sensation of adventure.

…her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.

To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.

Du jour où il nait, l’homme commence à mourir; c’est la vérité qu’incarne la Mère.

…counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.

Be loved, be admired, be necessary; be somebody.

In the old days the worst part of my depression used to be the astonishment it caused me, the scandalized way in which I fought against it. Nowadays, on the other hand, I accept it...

If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

I hadn’t known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really...

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!

La gente no acepta que se le diga sus verdades. Quieren que se crea sus lindas palabras o por lo menos que uno haga como si. Yo soy lúcida soy franca arranco las caretas. La...

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 engage in a business...