As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.

It is a difficult matter for man to realize the extreme importance of social discriminations which seem outwardly insignificant but which produce in woman moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to spring from her original nature.

A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.

This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.

I think that The Second Sex will seem an old, dated book, after a while. But nonetheless, a book which will have made its contribution. At least, I hope so.

Cooking is revolution and creation.