Simone de Beauvoir

“A Dialogue with Simone de Beauvoir,”

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth”

“But presently I began to bubble with happiness. No, my daughters' absence did not sadden me at all”

“What is an adult? A child puffed with age. The Woman Destroyed [ La Femme rompue ]”

“It's frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself... It seems unfair. You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do”

“Une Mort Très Douce (1964) translated by Patrick O'Brian as A Very Easy Death (1965) last words”

“Il n'y a pas de mort naturelle: rien de ce qui arrive à l'homme n'est jamais naturel puisque sa présence met le monde en question. Tous les hommes sont mortels: mais pour chaque homme sa mort est un accident et, même s'il la connaît et y consent, une violence indue. There is no such thing as a natural death : nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die; but for every man his death is an accident and even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”

“The Communists , following Hegel , speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion. On her work All Men are Mortal in Force of Circumstances (1963), p. 73”

“His personal prestige, his qualities, his competence assure him a preponderant role however; since 1927 he has been above all the unchallenged specialist on peasant question. But the power he exercises is no more dictatorial than, for example, Roosevelt 's was. New China's Constitution renders impossible the concentration of authority in one man's hands; the country is governed by a team whose members have been united through a long common struggle and by a close friendship. On Mao Zedong , in The Long March . World Publishing Company. 1958. p. 427.”

“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom . The Blood of Others [ Le sang des autres ]”