The father's life is surrounded by mysterious prestige: the hours he spends in the home, the room where he works, the objects around him, his occupations, his habits, have a sacred character. It is he who feeds the family, is the one in charge and the head. Usually he works outside the home, and it is through him that the household communicates with the rest of the world: he is the embodiment of this adventurous, immense, difficult, and marvelous world; he is transcendence, he is God.
Simone de BeauvoirThere is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.
Simone de BeauvoirChristianity gave eroticism its savor of sin and legend when it endowed the human female with a soul.
Simone de BeauvoirI had never believed in the sacred nature of literature. God had died when I was fourteen.
Simone de BeauvoirTo be feminist doesn't mean simply to do nothing, to reduce yourself to total impotence under the pretext of refusing masculine values. There is a problematic, a very difficult dialectic between accepting power and refusing it, accepting certain masculine values, and wanting to transform them. I think it's worth a try.
Simone de Beauvoir