Each person has his or her own very particular history and after all, the unconscious is the most secret part of ourselves.
Simone de BeauvoirThe individuals who seem to us most outstanding, who are honored with the name of genius, are those who have proposed to enact the fate of all humanity in their personal existences.
Simone de BeauvoirThat a whole part of the middle class detests me... is utterly normal. I would be troubled if the contrary were true.
Simone de BeauvoirEating, 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.
Simone de BeauvoirTo be feminist doesn't mean simply to do nothing, to reduce yourself to total impotence under the pretext of refusing masculine values. There is a problematic, a very difficult dialectic between accepting power and refusing it, accepting certain masculine values, and wanting to transform them. I think it's worth a try.
Simone de Beauvoir