Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Feminism is a revolutionary movement which is different from the class struggle movement, the proletarian movement, but which is a movement which must be leftist. By that I mean at the extreme left, a movement working to overthrow the whole society.

Françoise could not help taking a surreptitious glance at Xavière: she gave a start of amazement. Xavière was no longer watching, her head was lowered. Françoise barely suppressed a scream. The girl was pressing the lighted end against her skin, a bitter smile curling her lips. It was an intimate, solitary smile, like that of a half-wit; the voluptuous, tortured smile of a woman possessed of some secret pleasure.

Many things would be changed for Americans if they would only admit that there is ill-luck in this world and that misfortune is not a priori a crime.

Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.

The whole world was nothing but an exile with no hope of a return.