When women act like women, they are accused of being inferior. When women act like human beings, they are accused of behaving like men.
Simone de BeauvoirSign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.
Simone de Beauvoir--There you are. The sight of the changing world is miraculous and heartbreaking, both at the same time. --But so it is for me too. The heartbreaking side of growing old is not in the things around one but in oneself.
Simone de BeauvoirMy life was hurrying, racing tragically toward its end. And yet at the same time it was dripping so slowly, so very slowly now, hour by hour, minute by minute. One always has to wait until the sugar melts, the memory dies, the wound scars over, the sun sets, the unhappiness lifts and fades away.
Simone de BeauvoirIn the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.
Simone de BeauvoirIt's true that this is one of the problems which often arises among my radical, revolutionary feminist friends: Do you have to join the system or not? On the one hand, if you don't, you risk being ineffectual. But if you do, from that moment on, you place your feminism at the service of a system which you want to take apart.
Simone de Beauvoir