Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.

It's not a very big step from contentment to complacency.

Truthfully speaking, women are dangerous, even those who aren't feminists, because there has always been a women's revolt. Only it has usually translated itself into solitary, individualist, disagreeable manifestations - the whole history of the taming of the shrew, the woman-shrew. They weren't shrews without cause.

There has to be a certain relationship between the life and the writing style, and that is really a problem.

Given masculine norms, it is clear that women are more likely to be considered crazy - I'm not saying to be crazy.

Eating, sleeping, cleaning - the years no longer rise up toward heaven, they lie spread out ahead, gray and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won. Washing, ironing, sweeping, ferreting out rolls of lint from under wardrobes - all this halting of decay is also the denial of life; for time simultaneously creates and destroys, and only its negative aspect concerns the housekeeper.

I was very fond of Lagneau’s phrase: “I have no comfort but in my absolute despair.