My life was hurrying, racing tragically toward its end. And yet at the same time it was dripping so slowly, so very slowly now, hour by hour, minute by minute. One always has to wait until the sugar melts, the memory dies, the wound scars over, the sun sets, the unhappiness lifts and fades away.
Simone de BeauvoirAll the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesnยดt come fast enough. Instead of being open, youยดre closed up tight. Thatยดs the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.
Simone de BeauvoirBut I must admit I didnยดt 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: letยดs turn on the gas at once. And you donยดt turn it on.
Simone de BeauvoirThe notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.
Simone de Beauvoir