The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

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.

A couple who go on living together merely because that was how they began, without any other reason: was that what we were turning into?

I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way.

Woman has always been man's dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shaped the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change.

There is not a single line in this diary that does not call for a correction or a denial...Yes: throughout these pages I meant what I was writing and I meant the opposite; reading them again I feel completely lost...I was lying to myself. How I lied to myself!

Writing ... is a profession that can only be learned by writing.