I take on a shape and an existence only if I first throw myself into the world by loving, by doing.

I think that feminism permits women to speak among themselves, instead of simply being resentful, having personal complaints, which get them nowhere and which make them sick and ill-tempered, depressive and poison the lives of their husbands and children. It's much better to arrive at a collective consciousness of this problem, which is both a kind of therapy and the basis for a struggle.

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.

Can one say that there is a way of crying out, of speaking, which is properly feminine? Personally, I don't think so. In the end, I find this is another way of putting women in a kind of singularity, a ghetto, which is not what I want. I want them to be singular and universal at the same time.

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

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

There is a kind of universality in the human condition, masculine or feminine. That's one thing I continue to believe.