Quotes From "The Mandarins" By Simone De Beauvoir

In a way, literature is true than life, ' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. And that's why it's false. But it's damned satisfying. In life, you're constantly denying yourself, and others are always contradicting you. On paper, I make time stand still and I impose my convictions on the whole world; they become the only reality. . Simone De Beauvoir

Scriassine studied me in turn. "You're not so dumb, you know. Generally I dislike intelligent women, maybe because they're not intelligent enough. They always want to prove to themselves, and to everyone else, how terribly smart they are. So all they do is talk and never understand anything. What struck me the first time I saw you was that way you have of keeping quiet. Simone De Beauvoir

The day had been spent in the expectation of these hours, and now they were crumbling away, becoming, in their turn, another period of expectancy... It was a journey without end, leading to an indefinite future, eternally shifting just as she was reaching the present. Simone De Beauvoir

God! when you think of all the things you could do and yet somehow never do! All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn't come fast enough. Instead of being open, you're closed up tight. Thats's the worst sin of all - the sin of omission. Simone De Beauvoir

A normal existence - what could be more irrational? It's fantastic the number of things you're forced not to think about in order to go from one end of the day to the other without jumping the track! And the number of memories that have to be driven from your mind, and truths that have to be evaded! "That's why I'm afraid to leave, ' I said to myself. In Paris, near Robert, I manage without too much difficulty to avoid the traps; I carefully mark them, and there are alarm bells to warn me of dangers. But alone, under an unknown sky, what would happen to me? What truths would come suddenly to blind me? What chasms would open before me? Oh yes, chasms close, truths fade out - that is sure and certain; I've seen it happen often enough before. We're like those earthworms one vainly cuts in two, or those lobsters whose legs grow back again. But the moment of false agony, the moment you'd rather die than mend yourself once again - when I think of it, I lose heart. I try to reason with myself: 'Why should anything happen to me? But why shouldn't anything happen to me?' It's never safe to go off the beaten path. It's true, I feel a little stifled here, but you get used to being stifled. And a habit is never bad, despite what they say. Simone De Beauvoir

I hadn't known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really isn't very great. And yet, like myself, those future corpses who were drinking their coffee in silence appeared ashamed to be so alive. Simone De Beauvoir