Simone de Beauvoir

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

"I am my own woman."

"The world has always belonged to the strong."

"The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women."

"To be a woman is to have between one's legs a positive wound."

"I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom."

"Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."

"If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful woman has passed into your life."

"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."

"I am convinced that jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read."

"Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself."

"Humanity is not a species, but a history."

"I am not afraid of God. I am an atheist."

"One cannot help but wish that so much native intelligence might be better employed."

"The authentic subject chooses itself."

"A man who 'keeps' a woman doesn't deserve her."

"It is forbidden to forbid."

"Ethics is concerned with facts, not with sentiments."

"Art is one of the tools to fight violence."

"She never actually asked me to provide her with evidence. I only wanted to make myself clear."

"For woman is shut up in the home because she is woman."

"Ambition is not a dirty word. It simply means wanting to be or do something more."

"I am a writer and I take all kinds of liberties with reality."

"One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"The body is not a thing, it is a situation."

"It is not the world that makes women unhappy; it is unhappy women who make the world wrong."

"In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without fear, restraint, or obligation."

"What an absurd claim to make! I never wanted anyone's pity."