Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
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My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband. Instead of bringing our sexual relationship to life again I brooded happily over memories of our former nights together.
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The role of a retired person is no longer to possess one.
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On the evenings when my parents held parties, the drawing-room mirrors multiplied to infinity the scintillations of a crystal chandelier. Mama would take her seat at the grand piano to accompany a lady dressed in a cloud of tulle who played the violin and a cousin who performed on a cello. I would crack between my teeth the candied shell of an artificial fruit, and a burst of light would illuminate my palate with a taste of blackcurrant or pineapple: all the colours, all the lights were mine, the gauzy scarves, the diamonds, the laces; I held the whole party in my mouth.
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The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.
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It is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck.
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No existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself.
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Marriage is traditionally the destiny offered to women by society. Most women are married or have been, or plan to be or suffer from not being.
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Immortality is a terrible curse.
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The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength - each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving.
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As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.
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You have never had any confidence in him. And if he has no confidence in himself it is because he sees himself through your eyes.
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All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.
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As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.
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I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
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Writing ... is a profession that can only be learned by writing.
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Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.
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Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.
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There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.
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For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay.
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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.
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Old age is life's parody.
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Literature is born when something in life goes slightly adrift.
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I think it's wrong to write in a totally esoteric language when you want to talk about things which interest a multitude of women.
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Existence must be asserted in the present if one does not want all life to be defined as an escape toward nothingness.