A sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad, and that to establish its character is a question of the subtlest possible adjustments, a process of intuition to which exaggeration and force are fatal.

If love is what is held to make us immortal, hatred is the reverse.

I have absolutely no concept of work, except for university. But I like to talk to people a lot about their jobs.

Modern morality is all about perception.

Parenthood, like death, is an event for which it is nearly impossible to be prepared. It brings you into a new relationship with the fact of your own existence, a relationship in which one may be rendered helpless.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

In domestic life the woman's value is inherent, unquantifiable; at home she exchanges proven values for mythological ones. She "wants" to be at home, and because she is a woman she's allowed to want it. This desire is her mystique, it is both what enables her to domesticate herself and what disempowers her.