Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen.
Simone de BeauvoirThe emancipation of women must be the work of women themselves, independent of the class struggle.
Simone de BeauvoirOne is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.
Simone de BeauvoirIt is not mere chance that makes families speak of a child who is 'extraordinary for his age' and also of an old man who is 'extraordinary for his age'; the extraordinariness lies in their behaving like human beings when they are either not yet or no longer men.
Simone de Beauvoir