Sometimes speech is no more than a device for saying nothing - and a neater one than silence.

it is not the inferiority of women that has caused their historical insignificance; it is rather their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority.

No existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself.

That a whole part of the middle class detests me... is utterly normal. I would be troubled if the contrary were true.

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.

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through "the eternal feminine," and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question: what is a woman?

Sometimes you can accept an important post, on condition that it really puts you in a position to help women. Unfortunately, women who have important posts very often adopt masculine standards-power, ambition, personal success - and cut themselves off from other women.