All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.

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.

There are so many problems. Women can go to work on these as well without giving up their feminism.

I have never read a really good novel written by a man where women are portrayed as they truly are. They can be portrayed externally very well - Stendhal's Madame de Renal, for example - but only as seen from the outside.

But women do not say 'We', except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say 'women', and women use the same word in referring to themselves.

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

Love and action always imply a failure, but this failure must not keep us from loving and acting. For we have not only to establish what our situation is, we have to choose it in the very heart of its ambiguity.