Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

by Simone de Beauvoir

the violence of my love. On this rationalist self-sufficiency

had no subversive ideas; in fact, I hardly had any ideas on anything; but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.

At last I had met a man who instead of submitting to fate had chosen for himself a way of life; his existence, which had an aim and a meaning, was the incarnation of an idea, and was governed by its overriding necessity.

am alone. One is always alone. I shall always be alone.’ I

My path was clearly marked: I had to perfect, enrich, and express myself in a work of art that would help others to live. I felt I should already be

‘Why have words, when their brutal precision bruises our complicated souls?’

The important thing was to use whatever means one could to find release from the world, and then one would come within reach of eternity.

I read the Odyssey, ‘in order to put the whole

of humanity between myself and my too-private pain’.