The Girls Quotes

“For a moment he dreamed of seeing the beauty of the world with her, becoming merged with her as part of that beauty. Then his day-dream disintegrated, wandered, took another path. And he realized that though he did want to go on such a journey, he wanted to go alone. And it was true that , when he remembered all the wonderful places he had seen—every one of which he had visited at least twice, once alone and once with someone he loved—or when he wanted to use them in his books, it was always the time when he had travelled alone that came to his mind most vividly, most magically and most potently. For it is a major law of nature that we are no longer entirely one when we are two. If God said 'It is not good that man should live alone', it was because he was afraid of the solitary man. And so he weakened him by providing him with a mate, in order to have him at his mercy.”
― Henry de Montherlant, The Girls

“There are powerful reasons why a woman should marry. For a man there are none: he does it out of gregariousness. (And it is therefore natural enough for the law to give men a better position in marriage than women.) 'But then, why do men marry?' I once asked the Abbé Mugnier. His answer was: 'Out of a taste for disaster.' Yes, it really is a love of risk, of danger, the dark and unhealthy attraction of trouble, which drives the male to bring this hornets' nest about his ears. If he jibs in the slightest, people accuse him of 'cowardice'—cowardice in this case being synonymous with that form of intelligence known as the instinct of self-preservation.”
― Henry de Montherlant, The Girls