I think it's wrong to write in a totally esoteric language when you want to talk about things which interest a multitude of women.

I would stand transfixed before the windows of the confectioners' shops, fascinated by the luminous sparkle of candied fruits, the cloudy lustre of jellies, the kaleidoscope inflorescence of acidulated fruit drops - red, green, orange, violet: I coveted the colours themselves as much as the pleasure they promised me.

Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen.

He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time

If the writer is a woman, feminist or not, it will give the language something that it would not have if it had been used by a man.

it is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck.

I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself