I think that submissiveness can [be] and is a formidable weapon, which women will use as long as it isn't taken from them.

As a matter of fact," the other voice went on, "if you do tie her up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to like it, that's no good either. You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears.

Story of O is a fairy tale for another world, a world where some part of me lived for a long time, a world that no longer exists except between the covers of a book.

The fact that he gave her was to him a proof, and ought to be one for her as well that she belonged to him: one can only give what belongs to you.

Woman ... is the divine object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy, achieved through a subtle interplay of images, lies in contemplation of herself.

Men are foolish to expect us to revere them, when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing.

I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons.