Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom.

Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.

To be a woman, if not a defect, is at least a peculiarity.

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

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.

If women really did have complete equality with men, society would be completely overturned.

Work would be terribly boring if one did not play the game all out, passionately.