The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never… - Simone de Beauvoir

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.

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.

She was beautiful, with a beauty so severe and so solitary that at first it was startling. "Ah! If only there were two of me," she thought, "one doing the talking and one listening, one living and one watching, how I would love myself. I'd envy no one."