Anger or revolt that does not get into the muscles remains a figment of the imagination.

The ballot box is a most inadequate mechanism of change.

Dwelling-place and food are useful for life but give it no significance: the immediate goals of the housekeeper are only means, not true ends.

We belong to this earth. Now I can see the truth ... I love you on this earth of ours. Love me, do!

There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.

I don't want to be just another blade of grass.

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.