There are jobs that can be done equally well by men or by women and that finally you can't see a difference. But from the moment that you involve yourself fully in writing a novel, for example, or an essay, then you are involved as a woman, in the same way that you can't deny your nationality - you are French, you are a man, you are a woman... all this passes into the writing.
Simone de BeauvoirBut I must admit I didnยดt like that idea; do the same thing as everyone else. Eating to live, living to eat - that had been the nightmare of my adolescence. If it meant going back to that, if would be just as well to turn on the gas at once. But I suppose everyone thinks of things like that: letยดs turn on the gas at once. And you donยดt turn it on.
Simone de BeauvoirThe writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.
Simone de BeauvoirDwelling-place and food are useful for life but give it no significance: the immediate goals of the housekeeper are only means, not true ends.
Simone de BeauvoirAll the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesnยดt come fast enough. Instead of being open, youยดre closed up tight. Thatยดs the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.
Simone de BeauvoirMen create their own gods and thus have some slight understanding that they are self-fabricated. Women are much more susceptible, because they are completely oppressed by men; they take men at their word and believe in the gods that men have made up. The situation of women, their culture, makes them kneel more often before the gods that have been created by men than men themselves do, who know what they've done. To this extent, women will be more fanatical, whether it is for fascism or for totalitarianism.
Simone de Beauvoir