Ah, if only there were two of me, she thought, one who spoke and the other who listened, one who lived and one who watched, how I would love myself! I would envy no one.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion

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

Anais Nin shows an occasional grace in writing, but her work is quite foreign to me, precisely because she wants so much to be feminine and not feminist. And then she is so gaga before so many men. She talks about men I know in France, men who were less than nothing, and she considers them kings, extraordinary people.

But I must admit I didn´t like that idea; do the same thing as everyone else. Eating to live, living to eat - that had been the nightmare of my adolescence. If it meant going back to that, if would be just as well to turn on the gas at once. But I suppose everyone thinks of things like that: let´s turn on the gas at once. And you don´t turn it on.

For years I thought my work still lay ahead, and now I find it is behind me: there was no moment when it took place.