The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated from her.
Man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.
Every war, every revolution, demands the sacrifice of a generation, of a collectivity, by those who undertake it.
Because we are separated everything separates us, even our efforts to join each other.
And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so con...
Alone: for the first time I understood the terrible significance of that word. Alone without a witness, without anyone to speak to, without refuge. The breath in my body, the blood in my veins, all th...
If you live long enough you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Living by proxy is always a precarious expedient.
If you haven't been happy very young you can still be happy later on but it's much harder. You need more luck.
في الريف كنت أحس هناك وجود الله أكثر مما كنت أحسه في باريس. و كنت كلما التصقت بالأرض كلماازددت قرباً منه، و كانت كل نزهة صلاة له. كان يخيل إلي أنه على نحو ما بحاجة إلى عينيّ لتكون للأشجار ألوانها. و ح...
Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consultation for death.
All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.
[...]maintenant je n'ai plus de regrets,parce que les choses qui n'existent pas pour moi,il me semble qu'elles n'existent absolument pas.
Youth and what the Italians so prettily call stamina. The vigor, the fire, that enables you to love and create. When you've lost that, you've lost everything.
When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].
The adventure is which I have shared so passionately is not over--this adventure with its doubt, failure, the dreariness of no progress, then a glimpse of light, a hope, a hypothesis confirmed; and th...
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.
Les livres que j'aimais devinrent une Bible où je puisais des conseils et des secours.
He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!
A woman's situation, i.e those meanings derived from the total context in which she comes to maturity, disposes her to apprehend her body not as instrument of her transcendence, but an object destined...