“It is a mistake to seek in fantasies the key to concrete behaviour; for fantasies are created and cherished as fantasies. The little girl who dreams of violation with mingled horror and acquiescence does not really wish to be violated… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
“The thing I understood least of all was that knowledge led to despair and damnation. Our spiritual mentor had not said that those bad books had given a false picture of life: if that had been the case, he could… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
The time that one gains cannot be accumulated in a storehouse; it is contradictory to want to save up existence, which, the fact is,… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible. — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
Many things would be changed for Americans if they would only admit that there is ill-luck in this world and that misfortune is not… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
“You said something very true the other day: that for us, nudity begins with the face.” — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying. — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to. — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
In fact, people seem to be tired of fiction now. There are so many other ways of exploring humanity - by ethnology, psychoanalysis, and so on. It's a little boring to make up stories. So many people think that it's better to be very close to reality and to recount one's life as it is rather than to fictionalize, as… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share
“Magari mi troverai ridicola, ma mi disprezzerei se non osassi esserlo mai” — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
from one minute to the next the present is merely an honorary past. It must be filled unceasingly anew to dissemble the curse it… — Simone de Beauvoir Copy Share Image
