I have never read a really good novel written by a man where women are portrayed as they truly are. They can be portrayed externally very well - Stendhal's Madame de Renal, for example - but only as seen from the outside.
Simone de BeauvoirSince it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside --from others. We do not accept it willingly.
Simone de Beauvoirfrom one minute to the next the present is merely an honorary past. It must be filled unceasingly anew to dissemble the curse it carries within itself; that is why Americans like speed, alcohol, thriller films and any sensational news: the demand for new things, and ever newer things, is feverish since nowhere will they rest.
Simone de Beauvoir