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.

A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.

Women's mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.

I think that The Second Sex will seem an old, dated book, after a while. But nonetheless, a book which will have made its contribution. At least, I hope so.

Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.