Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: on… - Simone de Beauvoir

I could easily understand why Lambert was bored with this peace which gave us back our lives without giving us back our reasons for living.

The category of Other is as original as consciousness itself. The duality between Self and Other can be found in the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies; the division did not always fall into the category of the division of the sexes (...) No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. It only takes three travelers brought together by chance in the same train compartment for the rest of the travellers to become vaguely hostile 'others'. Village people view anyone not belonging to the village as suspicious 'others'. For the native of a country, inhabitants of other countries are viewed as 'foreigners'; Jews are the 'others' for anti-Semites, blacks for racist Americans, indigenous people for colonists, proletarians for the propertied classes.

Man may reproach women for their dissimulation, but his complacency must be great indeed for him to be so constantly duped.