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On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.

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[...].

[I] read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.

There are any number of magical creatures, mostly female, whose singing can bring about horror and death. Sirens, undines, banshees, Bananarama tribute bands...

A woman should soften but not weaken a man.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have , so to speak , pawned a part of their narcissism.

The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.

It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.

No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.

It is that we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never no helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object of its love.