“He feared me as many men fear women: because their mistresses (or their wives) understand them. They are scarcely adult, some men: they wish women to understand them, and to that end they tell them all their secrets; and then, when they are properly understood, they hate their women for understanding them.”

“Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.”

“Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions. ”

“The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.”

“It is important to understand that in the modern world we prefer the replica to the original because it gives us the greater frisson. I leave that word in French because I think you understand it well that way.”

“When you're young - when I was young - you want your emotions to be like the ones you read about in books. You want them to overturn your life, create and define a new reality. Later, I think, you want them to do something milder, something more practical: you want them to support your life as it is and has become. You want them to tell you that things are OK. And is there anything wrong with that?”

“It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different--men and women live in different worlds...at core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.”