Why does one exist? That's not my problem. One does exist. The thing to do is to take no notice but go at it on the run and to keep on going right on until you die.

Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear, without having so much as a smile for the young future.

Woman is shut up in a kitchen or in a boudoir, and astonishment is expressed that her horizon is limited. Her wings are clipped, and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly.

The nearer I come to the end of my days, the more I am enabled to see that strange thing, a life, and to see it whole.

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through "the eternal feminine," and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question: what is a woman?

Choice springs from the totality of the person. Thus, to study, to analyze what a person is, does not eliminate the idea of freedom.

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].