Femme Quotes

On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

When we stay locked up in the spectrum of unsolved life stories and keep hiding in an arcane prism, life remains a mystery behind perpetual tensions and a journey in a world beyond appearances. (“Une femme peut en cacher une autre")

I suppose you could pass for a starlet. You do have that femme fatale air about you. Like you crush boys’ dreams in your spare time.

Le plus beau vêtement qui puisse habiller une femme, ce sont les bras de l'homme qu'elle aime.

Aimer les femmes intelligentes est un plaisir de pédéraste.

Les hommes ont inventé la guerre, la femme a inventé la résistance.

I wasn't cute or passive enough to be "femme," and I wasn't mean or tough enough to be "butch." I was given a wide berth. Non-conventional people can be dangerous, even in the gay community.

I knew what she was, and it made no difference at all. She was hard, as ruthless as she was beautiful, as brittle as bone china.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien : Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme, Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien, Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.

I am sorry that the only way we have been taught to heal is to hurt.

И не ви казвам, че човек не може да живее и без любов - може - и това е най-гадното.

Be dangerous, darling, for the whole world rises and falls at your feet.

Rien n'est plus beau qu'un corps nu. Le plus beau vêtement qui puisse habiller une femme ce sont les bras de l'homme qu'elle aime. Mais, pour celles qui n'ont pas eu la chance de trouver ce bonheur, je suis là.

I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes (as if we had nothing more interesting to war over), not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn’t necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn’t qualify either). I’m talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don’t tell me you don’t know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.

If its danger you seek, come on over. I covet tranquility but beget the tempest storm.

Donc, il est juste et vrai que la séparation du spirituel et du sensuel chez un homme est signe de sa virilité, et la séparation du spirituel et du sensuel chez une femme est signe de sa prostitution. Et il suffirait que toutes les femmes, ensemble, se virilisent, pour que le monde, le monde entier, se transforme en bordel. ( from "Roman avec cocaïne" )

I’ve never considered myself a femme fatale as I’ve never seduced anyone and ruined their lives. At least as far as I know.

To be a femme fatale you don't have to be slinky and sensuous and disastrously beautiful, you just have to have the will to disturb.

Мисля, че в мен има някаква развейпрахщина - все още ми се ще да бъда щастлив.

Не е достатъчно да сме нещастни поотделно, за да бъдем щастливи заедно.

Respecter une femme, c'est pouvoir envisager l'amitié avec elle ; ce qui n'exclut pas le jeu de la séduction, et même, dans certains cas, le désir et l'amour.

Splat. Without thought, she’d thrown mud all over his face. So much for femme fatale. He sputtered in disbelief, then roared, “What the ever-livin’ feck—

Cherchez la femme, Bucky. Remember that.

For all the feminist jabber about women being victimized by fashion, it is men who most suffer from conventions of dress. Every day, a woman can choose from an army of personae, femme to butch, and can cut or curl her hair or adorn herself with a staggering variety of artistic aids. But despite the Sixties experiments in peacock dress, no man can rise in the corporate world today, outside the entertainment industry, with long hair or makeup or purple velvet suits.

I wanted to protect you, but I'm starting to think that the best thing you can do for people is teach them how to protect themselves. Every girl needs to be at least a little dangerous.

Si vous êtes une femme et que vous osez regarder à l’intérieur de vous-même, alors vous êtes une sorcière.

Nul n'est plus arrogant à l'égard des femmes, agressif ou dédaigneux, qu'un homme inquiet de sa virilité.

Ever since I could remember, She was all that mattered.

She looked hot enough to catch fire, but too lazy to do anything but just lie there and smoke.

Une femme qui pleure et te demande de la protéger c’est Grandiose

Le bonheur est la poésie des femmes.

Il y a une femme dans toutes les affaires; aussitôt qu'on me fait un rapport, je dis: 'Cherchez la femme'.

J'ai bien besoin d'avoir cette femme, pour me sauver du ridicule d'en être amoureux:

Législateurs, prêtres, philosophes, écrivains, savants se sont acharnés à démontrer que la condition subordonnée de la femme était voulue dans le ciel et profitable à la terre.

There's the good girl leading a charmed life who secretly covets to be the rare and elusive femme fatale and the femme fatale who yearns to be good and then there is their nemesis - men who dream and desire both.

Every gesture was one of disorder and violence, as if a lioness had come into the room.

She looked slick as hell; polished, neat, and with that feminine deadliness that can drive you nuts. They work on it till they get complete control of the situation. There's no use trying to break them down. They've made it.

Do not be alarmed if they look paler than the other maidens of Greece. They are scarcely of this Earth, and seem to be shaking off the sleep of a past life.

Je dois vraiment en avoir assez, pensait-il, étonné lui-même par ses propres mots; quand je commence à m'occuper du vocabulaire d'une femme, c'est que la fin est proche." (p.98)

L'idéal de la beauté féminine est variable; mais certaines exigences demeurent constantes; entre autres, puisque la femme est destinée à être possédée, il faut que son corps offre les qualités inertes et passives d'un objet.

Beside her, her husband could only splutter, and he stopped even that when she half turned to flash him a smile - the instinctive, brilliant smile of a woman who knows what feeble creatures men can be. You couldn't learn to smile like that. It was something a woman either knew the minute she was born, or never knew at all. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

She looked like a vixen, and that’s what she was; she had all the instincts of a female fox. She was the proverbial predatory female. She had what she wanted, now, and she was content. There was just the getting completely away with it that counted.

Si j’aimais une femme, la plus belle preuve d’amour que je puisse lui faire, c’est de ne jamais le lui dire, pour qu’elle ne prenne pas le risque de vivre avec un type comme moi

Elle flotte, elle hésite; en un mot, elle est femme.” “(She floats, she hesitates; in a word, she's a woman.)

وسعادتي بفهم الناس أكبر من سعادتي بالحكم عليهم

Whenever I get dumped, I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and...get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs. And if you wanna point like Dio, it's a three-finger point. (heavy metal voice) 'The exit is that way. Evil LURKS! Evil lurks in twilight! Dances in the DARK! Evil woman! Just WALK AWAY!

The spider's web: She finds an innocuous corner in which to spin her web. The longer the web takes, the more fabulous its construction. She has no need to chase. She sits quietly, her patience a consummate force; she waits for her prey to come to her on their own, and then she ensnares them, injects them with venom, rendering them unable to escape. Spiders – so needed and yet so misunderstood.

N’oubliez jamais qu’il suffira d’une crise politique, économique ou religieuse pour que les droits des femmes soient remis en question. Ces droits ne sont jamais acquis. Vous devrez rester vigilantes votre vie durant.

Le féminisme est une aventure collective, pour les femmes, pour les hommes, et pour les autres. Un révolution, bien en marche. Une vision du monde, un choix. Il ne s'agit pas d'opposer les petits avantages des femmes aux petits acquis des hommes mais bien de tout foutre en l'air.

Car si elle n'avait jamais agi ainsi consciemment, elle se rendait bien compte qu'une femme pouvait confondre amour et pitié, et s'attacher à un homme dans l'espoir de le sauver. Ou qu'elle pouvait y voir comme un défi, persuadée qu'elle et elle seule pourrait le secourir, le protéger et le rendre heureux.

My first female lover was a Jewish woman. She was butch, but not in a swaggering macho way- she could pass as a yeshiva boy, pale and intense. Small, almost fragile, she exuded a powerful sense of herself. She had not been to a synagogue in years, but kept the law of kashrut, and taught me my first prayers in Hebrew. She cooked, she read, she ironed her dress shirts and polished her boots meticulously, and admired femme women enormously. She was also the first person ever- including myself- to bring me to multiple orgasms. She taught me to ask for what I wanted in bed, then encouraged me to expect it from her and future lovers. She taught me to get her off with fingers, tongue, lips, sex toys, and my voice. She showed me how to masturbate in different positions, and fisted me during my menstrual cramps to provide an internal massage- and to demonstrate that a sexual act without orgasm was also an acceptable, intimate act. She never separated sexuality from the rest of her life; it was as integral to her as her Judaism. This was how I wanted to be. Not just sexually, although certainly that way too. This is how I wanted to move through the world. -- Karen Taylor (from "Daughters of Zelophehad")

There were many beautiful vipers in those days and she was one of them. ("Eveline's Visitant")

He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.

C’est une femme,” said the chef de train again. “Women are like that. When they are enraged they have great strength.” He nodded so sagely that everyone suspected a personal experience of his own.

Le Chat Viens, mon beau chat, sur mon coeur amoureux; Retiens les griffes de ta patte, Et laisse-moi plonger dans tes beaux yeux, Mêlés de métal et d'agate. Lorsque mes doigts caressent à loisir Ta tête et ton dos élastique, Et que ma main s'enivre du plaisir De palper ton corps électrique, Je vois ma femme en esprit. Son regard, Comme le tien, aimable bête, Profond et froid, coupe et fend comme un dard, Et, des pieds jusques à la tête, Un air subtil, un dangereux parfum, Nagent autour de son corps brun.

Не знам нищо за утрешния ден, Мишел. Нямам такива луксозни навици. Изградена съм от малки днешни дни.

Everything she heard, everything she saw seemed to be in disagreement with her own manner of understanding and feeling. To her, the sun did not appear red enough, the nights pale enough, the skies deep enough. Her fleeting conception of things and beings condemned her fatally to a perversion of her senses, to vagaries of the spirit and left her nothing but the torment of an unachieved longing, the torture of unfulfilled desires.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent. When she came to my bed and begged me with sighs not to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise, I told her I’d spare her and kissed her closed eyes, then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise. While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fine I devoured her mouth, tender lips divine; and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine. Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.

لا يمكن أن أصف لك مرارتي ويأسي، لكنك تستطيع أن تتخيل ما شعرت به: ألا تكون في نظر إنسان منحتَه كل حياتك، أكثر من ذبابة تهُشها يدٌ كسلى بضجر.

A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside

Quand j'étais enfant, le luxe c'était pour moi les manteaux de fourrure et les villas au bord de la mer. Plus tard, j'ai cru que c'était de mener une vie d'intellectuel. Il me semble maintenant que c'est aussi de pouvoir vivre une passion pour un homme ou une femme

Le coucher de soleil, le printemps, le bleu de la mer, les étoiles de la nuit, toutes ces choses que nous disons captivantes n’ont de magie que lorsqu’elles gravitent autour d’une femme, mon garçon… Car la Beauté, la vraie, l’ unique, la beauté phare, la beauté absolue, c ’est la femme. Le reste, tout le reste n ’est qu ’accessoires de charme.

Avec l'amour maternel, la vie vous fait, à l'aube, une promesse qu'elle ne tient jamais. Chaque fois qu'une femme vous prend dans ses bras et vous serre sur son coeur, ce ne sont plus que des condoléances. On revient toujours gueuler sur la tombe de sa mère comme un chien abandonné. Jamais plus, jamais plus, jamais plus. Des bras adorables se referment autour de votre cou et des lèvres très douces vous parlent d'amour, mais vous êtes au courant. Vous êtes passé à la source très tôt et vous avez tout bu. Lorsque la soif vous reprend, vous avez beau vous jeter de tous côtés, il n'y a plus de puits, il n'y a que des mirages. Vous avez fait, dès la première lueur de l'aube, une étude très serrée de l'amour et vous avez sur vous de la documentation. Je ne dis pas qu'il faille empêcher les mères d'aimer leurs petits. Je dis simplement qu'il vaut mieux que les mères aient encore quelqu'un d'autre à aimer. Si ma mère avait eu un amant, je n'aurais pas passé ma vie à mourir de soif auprès de chaque fontaine. Malheureusement pour moi, je me connais en vrais diamants.

Aimer est la seule richesse qui croît avec la prodigalité. Plus on donne et plus il vous reste. [...] Moins il reste de chacun, et plus il reste des deux [...] Je vivrai jusqu'au plus grand âge, pour te donner ma mémoire. J'aurai toujours patrie, terre, source, jardin et maison: éclair de femme. Un mouvement de hanches, un vol de chevelure, quelques rides que nous aurons écrites ensemble, et je saurai d'où je suis.

Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux et lâches, méprisables et sensuels ; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées ; le monde n'est qu'un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange ; mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c'est l'union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux. On est souvent trompé en amour, souvent blessé et souvent malheureux ; mais on aime, et quand on est sur le bord de sa tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière ; et on se dit : " J'ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelquefois, mais j'ai aimé. C'est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui.

Pandora opened the box with the new high-heels, put them on and went out to town.

You will be able to stop hurting people when you stop hurting yourself.

That's one of the things that "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically. The experimental linguistic, epistemological, representational, political adventures attaching to the very many of us who may at times be moved to describe ourselves as (among many other possibilities) pushy femmes, radical faeries, fantasists, drags, clones, leatherfolk, ladies in tuxedos, feminist women or feminist men, masturbators, bulldaggers, divas, Snap! queens, butch bottoms, storytellers, transsexuals, aunties, wannabes, lesbian-identified men or lesbians who sleep with men, or ... people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such.

Quand ces enfant sont arrivés à Auschwitz, on n'opéra pas de 'selection'. On ne les mit pas en rang avec les hommes et les femmes. On ne regarda pas qui était en bonne santé, qui était malade, qui pouvait travailler, qui ne le pouvait pas. On les envoya directement dans les chambres à gaze.

A woman is like an ocean; beautiful to look at but dangerous to cross.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Gauvin reprit : -Et la femme? qu'en faites-vous? Cimourdain répondit: -Ce qu'elle est. La servante de l'homme. -Oui. À une condition. -Laquelle? -C'est que l'homme sera le serviteur de la femme. -Y penses-tu? s'écria Cimourdain, l'homme serviteur! Jamais. L'homme est maître . Je n'admet qu'une royauté, celle du foyer. L'homme chez lui est roi. -Oui. À une condition. -Laquelle? -C'est que la femme y sera reine.

الامتنان! نادرا مانرى الناس يظهرونه، وحتى أكثر الممتنين لا يجدون العبارة المناسبة، بل يكتفون بالصمت مرتبكين، ويبدون الخجل والحرج لإخفاء مشاعرهم.

Don't make a career out of underestimating me." — Claire de Haven

إذا النساء حرمن الحرية فلا يمكن ان تكون هناك ثورة . هل تحقق الثورة فى مجتمع يكبل نصفه بالقيود ؟

On s'ennuie de tout, mon ange, c'est une loi de la nature; ce n'est pas ma faute. Si donc, je m'ennuie aujourd'hui d'une aventure qui m'a occupé entièrement depuis quatre mortels mois, ce n'est pas ma faute. Si, par exemple, j'ai eu juste autant d'amour que toi de vertu, et c'est surement beaucoup dire, il n'est pas étonnant que l'un ait fini en même temps que l'autre. Ce n'est pas ma faute. Il suit de là, que depuis quelque temps je t'ai trompée: mais aussi ton impitoyable tendresse m'y forçait en quelque sorte! Ce n'est pas ma faute. Aujourd'hui, une femme que j'aime éperdument exige que je te sacrifie. Ce n'est pas ma faute. Je sens bien que voilà une belle occasion de crier au parjure: mais si la Nature n'a accordé aux hommes que la constance, tandis qu'elle donnait aux femmes l'obstination, ce n'est pas ma faute. Crois-moi, choisis un autre amant, comme j'ai fait une maîtresse. Ce conseil est bon, très bon; si tu le trouve mauvais, ce n'est pas ma faute. Adieu, mon ange, je t'ai prise avec plaisir, je te quitte sans regrets: je te reviendrai peut-être. Ainsi va le monde. Ce n'est pas ma faute.

I ripped all her clothes off. She twisted and turned, slow, so they would slip out from under her. Then she closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow. Her hair was falling over her shoulders in snaky curls. Her eye was all black, and her breasts weren’t drawn up and pointing up at me, but soft, and spread out in two big pink splotches. She looked like the great grandmother of every whore in the world. The devil got his money’s worth that night.

The Great Mother aborts children, and is the dead fetus; breeds pestilence, and is the plague; she makes of the skull something gruesomely compelling, and is all skulls herself. To unveil her is to risk madness, to gaze over the abyss, to lose the way, to remember the repressed trauma. She is the molestor of children, the golem, the bogey-man, the monster in the swamp, the rotting cadaverous zombie who threatens the living. She is progenitor of the devil, the “strange son of chaos.” She is the serpent, and Eve, the temptress; she is the femme fatale, the insect in the ointment, the hidden cancer, the chronic sickness, the plague of locusts, the cause of drought, the poisoned water. She uses erotic pleasure as bait to keep the world alive and breeding; she is a gothic monster, who feeds on the blood of the living.

In a paradoxical sense, once I accepted my position as different from the larger society as well as from any single-sub-society--black or gay--I felt I didn't have to try so hard. To be accepted. To look femme. To be straight. To look straight. To be proper. To look "nice". To be liked. To be loved. To be approved. What I didn't realize was how much harder I had to try merely to stay alive, or rather, to stay human. How much stronger a person I became in that trying.

À partir de là, le dialogue de la journée suivait une pente uniformément descendante, mais avec des lèvres et des mains chaleureuses et languides flottant sur les surface les plus sensibles du corps, le monde était aussi près que possible de la perfection. Freud appelait cela un état de perversité polymorphe impersonnel et le regardait d'un mauvais oeil, mais je doute fort qu'il ait jamais eu les mains de Lil lui frôlant le corps. Ou même celles de sa propre femme dans le même rôle. Freud était un bien grand homme, mais je n'arrive pas à me faire à l'idée que quelqu'un lui ait jamais efficacement flatté le pénis.

She knew how much I needed her. And now she was teasing, playing games. I looked at her and watched her turn into a sex symbol in front of my eyes. She did not look sweet and virginal and lovely anymore. I looked at the very simple summer dress and saw breasts and belly and hips. I looked at her eyes and saw lust as naked as my own.

À une passante La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
 Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
 Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse
 Soulevant, balançant le feston et l'ourlet; Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
 Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,
 Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan,
 La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue. Un éclair . . . puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté 
 Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,
 Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité? Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
 Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
 Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!

I know the devices of a demon. I was taught as a child about the demon lover. I was told about a beautiful temptress who came to a young man's room. And he, if he were wise, would demand that she turn around, because demons and witches have no back, only what they wish to present to you.

It’s not about self-care—it’s about collective care. Collective care means shifting our organizations to be ones where people feel fine if they get sick, cry, have needs, start late because the bus broke down, move slower, ones where there’s food at meetings, people work from home—and these aren’t things we apologize for. It is the way we do the work, which centers disabled-femme-of-color ways of being in the world, where many of us have often worked from our sickbeds, our kid beds, or our too-crazy-to-go-out-today beds. Where we actually care for each other and don’t leave each other behind. Which is what we started with, right?

A Mademoiselle Oui, femmes, quoi qu'on puisse dire, Vous avez le fatal pouvoir De nous jeter par un sourire Dans l'ivresse ou le désespoir. Oui, deux mots, le silence même, Un regard distrait ou moqueur, Peuvent donner à qui vous aime Un coup de poignard dans le coeur. Oui, votre orgueil doit être immense, Car, grâce à notre lâcheté, Rien n'égale votre puissance, Sinon votre fragilité. Mais toute puissance sur terre Meurt quand l'abus en est trop grand, Et qui sait souffrir et se taire S'éloigne de vous en pleurant. Quel que soit le mal qu'il endure, Son triste rôle est le plus beau. J'aime encore mieux notre torture Que votre métier de bourreau.

Le voilà le grand drame de notre société: Même les riches ne font plus envie. Ils sont gros, moches, et vulgaires, leurs femmes sont liftées, ils vont en prison, leurs enfants se droguent, ils ont des goûts de ploucs, ils posent pour Gala. Les riches d'aujourd'hui ont oublié que l'argent est un moyen non une fin. Ils ne savent plus quoi en faire. Au moins quand on est pauvre, on peut se dire qu'avec du fric, tout s'arrangerait. Mais quand on est riche, on ne peut pas se dire qu'avec une nouvelle baraque dans le Midi, une autre voiture de sport, une paire de pompes à 12000 balles, ou un mannequin supplémentaire, tout s'arrangerait. Quand on est riche, on n'a plus d'excuse. C'est pour ça que tout les milliardaires sont sous Prozac ; parce qu'ils ne font plus rêver personne, même pas eux !

Elle est inquiète, il faut du temps, nous sommes encore un peu étrangers l'un à l'autre, hésitants, incertains, il nous manque des discordes, des différends, des heurts, la découverte de nos travers, défauts et petitesses, toutes ces incompatibilités qui nous permettront de mieux nous sculpter l'un dans l'autre, de bricoler nos rapports, de nous ajuster, d'épouser peu à peu nos formes respectives, et la tendresse vient alors enrichir ce qui manque à l'un par ce qui manque à l'autre..

Blow on, ye death fraught whirlwinds! blow, Around the rocks, and rifted caves; Ye demons of the gulf below! I hear you, in the troubled waves. High on this cliff, which darkness shrouds In night's impenetrable clouds, My solitary watch I keep, And listen, while the turbid deep Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole. Eternal world of waters, hail! Within thy caves my Lover lies; And day and night alike shall fail Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes. Along this wild untrodden coast, Heap'd by the gelid' hand of frost; Thro' this unbounded waste of seas, Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze; Mine was the choice, in this terrific form, To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm. Yes! I am chang'd - My heart, my soul, Retain no more their former glow. Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll, I watch the bark, in murmurs low, (While darker low'rs the thick'ning' gloom) To lure the sailor to his doom; Soft from some pile of frozen snow I pour the syren-song of woe; Like the sad mariner's expiring cry, As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die. Then, while the dark and angry deep Hangs his huge billows high in air ; And the wild wind with awful sweep, Howls in each fitful swell - beware! Firm on the rent and crashing mast, I lend new fury to the blast; I mark each hardy cheek grow pale, And the proud sons of courage fail; Till the torn vessel drinks the surging waves, Yawns the disparted main, and opes its shelving graves. When Vengeance bears along the wave The spell, which heav'n and earth appals; Alone, by night, in darksome cave, On me the gifted wizard calls. Above the ocean's boiling flood Thro' vapour glares the moon in blood: Low sounds along the waters die, And shrieks of anguish fill the' sky; Convulsive powers the solid rocks divide, While, o'er the heaving surge, the embodied spirits glide. Thrice welcome to my weary sight, Avenging ministers of Wrath! Ye heard, amid the realms of night, The spell that wakes the sleep of death. Where Hecla's flames the snows dissolve, Or storms, the polar skies involve; Where, o'er the tempest-beaten wreck, The raging winds and billows break; On the sad earth, and in the stormy sea, All, all shall shudd'ring own your potent agency. To aid your toils, to scatter death, Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force, When the keen north-wind's freezing breath Spreads desolation in its course, My soul within this icy sea, Fulfils her fearful destiny. Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait To lead the victims to their fate; With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy, And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy.

Poirot's eyes opened. "That is great ferocity," he said. "It is a woman," said the chef de train, speaking for the first time. "Depend upon it, it was a woman. Only a woman would stab like that." Dr. Constantine screwed up his face thoughtfully. "She must have been a very strong woman," he said. "It is not my desire to speak technically-that is only confusing; but I can assure you that two of the blows were delivered with such forces as to drive them through hard belts of bone and muscle." "It was clearly not a scientific crime," said Poirot. "It was most unscientific," returned Dr. Constantine. "The blows seem to have been delivered haphazard and at random. Some have glanced off, doing hardly any damage. It is as though somebody had shut his eyes and then in a frenzy struck blindly again and again." "C'est une femme," said the chef de train again. "Women are like that. When they are enraged they have great strength." He nodded so sagely that everyone suspected a personal experience of his own.

…Опитах. Но да се обрече човек на някого, защото е спрял да го обича, а това е несправедливо, да се обрече човек на някого в името на някаква етика, в това няма нищо живо и реално. Това е хуманизъм, в който не е останало нищо хуманно, противоестествен акт, и Ален никога не би го приел, докато беше.. цял. …Колкото повече го обвинявах, толкова повече се мъчех да го обичам. Но в името на какво? В името на какво, Мишел? На някаква идея за справедливост, мисля… или за несправедливост. ... Почти въпрос на …цивилизация, знам ли. Но бях принудена да призная, че вече не ставаше въпрос за Ален. Не се обричах на човека, а на идеята си за човека, а в крайна сметка в това няма нищо човешко.

Mario, I wrote, to give myself courage, had not taken away the world, he had taken away only himself. And you are not a woman of thirty years ago. You are of today, take hold of today, don't regress, don't lose yourself, keep a tight grip. Above all, don't give into distracted or malicious or angry monologues. Eliminate the exclamation points. He's gone, you're still here. You'll no longer enjoy the gleam of his eyes, of his words, but so what? Organize your defenses, preserve your wholeness, don't let yourself break like an ornament, you're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit. My job, I thought, is to demonstrate that one can remain healthy. Demonstrate it to myself, no one else. If I am exposed to lizards, I will fight the lizards. If I am exposed to ants, I will fight the ants. If I am exposed to thieves, I will fight the thieves. If I am exposed to myself, I will fight myself.

From sunset she appeared, Her cloak pierced by a bloom Of unfamiliar climes. She summoned me somewhere Into the northern gloom And aimless winter ice. And bonfire burned 'mid night, And with its tongues the blaze Did lick the very skies. The eyes flashed fiery light, And falling as black snakes The tresses were released. And then the snakes encircled My mind and lofty spirit Lay spread upon the cross. And in the snowdust's swirl To black eyes I am true, To beauty of the coils. (untitled: "From sunset she appeared")

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

-...как е възможно след толкова години то все още да съществува, тук, непокътнато, както в първите дни? А казваха: всичко отминава, всичко се чупи, всичко изморява... -То е само при онези, които отминават, чупят се и се изморяват... - Какво ни е на нас с теб? Ами проблемите на двойката, това-онова? -Какво е това "проблеми на двойката"? Или има проблеми, или има двойка. ... - Има неподходящи срещи, това е всичко. И на мен се е случвало. На теб също. Как искаш хората да разпознават истинското от фалшивото, когато умират от самота? Срещаш някого, опитваш се да го направиш интересен, измисляш го изцяло, обличаш го от глава до пети в качества, затваряш очи, за да го видиш по-добре. Ако е красив и тъп, намираш, че е умен, ако той те намира за тъпа, се чувства умен, ако забележи, че гърдите ти са увиснали, те намира за индивидуална, ако започнеш да усещаш, че е мекотело, си казваш, че трябва да му помогнеш, ако е невежа, ти пък знаеш за двама, ако иска да го прави през цялото време, си казваш, че те обича, а ако няма много склонност към това, си казваш, че не това е важното, ако е стиснат, значи е прекарал бедно детство, ако е темерут, си казваш, че е естествен и продължаваш така, със зъби и нокти да отричаш очевидното, а то ти се вре в очите и ей това се нарича проблеми на двойката, проблемът на двойката, когато вече не можете да се измисляте един-друг и тогава настъпват скръбта, злобата, омразата, отломките, които се опитвате да залепите заради децата или просто защото предпочиташ да си в лайната, само не сама. Това е…

Lorsque, discutant avec un écrivain qui a trois enfants et qui voyage beaucoup, [Natacha Appanah] lui demande comment il fait, il lui réponde qu'il a « beaucoup de chance ». Elle commente : « "Beaucoup de chance", c'est, je crois, une façon moderne de dire "J'ai une épouse formidable". » Et elle fait les comptes : « Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Simone de Beauvoir : pas d'enfants. Toni Morrison : deux enfants, a publié son premier roman à trente-neuf ans. Penelope Fitzgerald : trois enfants, a publié son premier roman à soixante ans. Saul Bellow : plusieurs enfants, plusieurs romans. John Updike : plusieurs enfants, plusieurs romans. » (p. 83-84)

To pragmatists, the letter Z is nothing more than a phonetically symbolic glyph, a minor sign easily learned, readily assimilated, and occasionally deployed in the course of a literate life. To cynics, Z is just an S with a stick up its butt. Well, true enough, any word worth repeating is greater than the sum of its parts; and the particular word-part Z can, from a certain perspective, appear anally wired. On those of us neither prosaic nor jaded, however, those whom the Fates have chosen to monitor such things, Z has had an impact above and beyond its signifying function. A presence in its own right, it’s the most distant and elusive of our twenty-six linguistic atoms; a mysterious, dark figure in an otherwise fairly innocuous lineup, and the sleekest little swimmer ever to take laps in a bowl of alphabet soup. Scarcely a day of my life has gone by when I’ve not stirred the alphabetical ant nest, yet every time I type or pen the letter Z, I still feel a secret tingle, a tiny thrill… Z is a whip crack of a letter, a striking viper of a letter, an open jackknife ever ready to cut the cords of convention or peel the peach of lust. A Z is slick, quick, arcane, eccentric, and always faintly sinister - although its very elegance separates it from the brutish X, that character traditionally associated with all forms of extinction. If X wields a tire iron, Z packs a laser gun. Zap! If X is Mike Hammer, Z is James Bond. If X marks the spot, Z avoids the spot, being too fluid, too cosmopolitan, to remain in one place. In contrast to that prim, trim, self-absorbed supermodel, I, or to O, the voluptuous, orgasmic, bighearted slut, were Z a woman, she would be a femme fatale, the consonant we love to fear and fear to love.

...the presence of others has become even more intolerable to me, their conversation most of all. Oh, how it all annoys and exasperates me: their attitudes, their manners, their whole way of being! The people of my world, all my unhappy peers, have come to irritate, oppress and sadden me with their noisy and empty chatter, their monstrous and boundless vanity, their even more monstrous egotism, their club gossip... the endless repetition of opinions already formed and judgments already made; the automatic vomiting forth of articles read in those morning papers which are the recognised outlet of the hopeless wilderness of their ideas; the eternal daily meal of overfamiliar cliches concerning racing stables and the stalls of fillies of the human variety... the hutches of the 'petites femmes' - another worn out phrase in the dirty usury of shapeless expression! Oh my contemporaries, my dear contemporaries... Their idiotic self-satisfaction; their fat and full-blown self-sufficiency: the stupid display of their good fortune; the clink of fifty- and a hundred-franc coins forever sounding out their financial prowess, according their own reckoning; their hen-like clucking and their pig-like grunting, as they pronounce the names of certain women; the obesity of their minds, the obscenity of their eyes, and the toneless-ness of their laughter! They are, in truth, handsome puppets of amour, with all the exhausted despondency of their gestures and the slackness of their chic... Chic! A hideous word, which fits their manner like a new glove: as dejected as undertakers' mutes, as full-blown as Falstaff... Oh my contemporaries: the ceusses of my circle, to put it in their own ignoble argot. They have all welcomed the moneylenders into their homes, and have been recruited as their clients, and they have likewise played host to the fat journalists who milk their conversations for the society columns. How I hate them; how I execrate them; how I would love to devour them liver and lights - and how well I understand the Anarchists and their bombs!

Mes amis, j'écris ce petit mot pour vous dire que je vous aime, que je pars avec la fierté de vous avoir connus, l'orgueil d'avoir été choisi et apprécié par vous, et que notre amitié fut sans doute la plus belle œuvre de ma vie. C'est étrange, l'amitié. Alors qu'en amour, on parle d'amour, entre vrais amis on ne parle pas d'amitié. L'amitié, on la fait sans la nommer ni la commenter. C'est fort et silencieux. C'est pudique. C'est viril. C'est le romantisme des hommes. Elle doit être beaucoup plus profonde et solide que l'amour pour qu'on ne la disperse pas sottement en mots, en déclarations, en poèmes, en lettres. Elle doit être beaucoup plus satisfaisante que le sexe puisqu'elle ne se confond pas avec le plaisir et les démangeaisons de peau. En mourant, c'est à ce grand mystère silencieux que je songe et je lui rends hommage. Mes amis, je vous ai vus mal rasés, crottés, de mauvaise humeur, en train de vous gratter, de péter, de roter, et pourtant je n'ai jamais cessé de vous aimer. J'en aurais sans doute voulu à une femme de m'imposer toutes ses misères, je l'aurais quittée, insultée, répudiée. Vous pas. Au contraire. Chaque fois que je vous voyais plus vulnérables, je vous aimais davantage. C'est injuste n'est-ce pas? L'homme et la femme ne s'aimeront jamais aussi authentiquement que deux amis parce que leur relation est pourrie par la séduction. Ils jouent un rôle. Pire, ils cherchent chacun le beau rôle. Théâtre. Comédie. Mensonge. Il n'y a pas de sécurité en l'amour car chacun pense qu'il doit dissimuler, qu'il ne peut être aimé tel qu'il est. Apparence. Fausse façade. Un grand amour, c'est un mensonge réussi et constamment renouvelé. Une amitié, c'est une vérité qui s'impose. L'amitié est nue, l'amour fardé. Mes amis, je vous aime donc tels que vous êtes.

J’écris donc d’ici, de chez les invendues, les tordues, celles qui ont le crâne rasée, celles qui ne savent pas s’habiller, celles qui ont peur de puer, celles qui ont les chicots pourris, celles qui ne savent pas s’y prendre, celles à qui les hommes ne font pas de cadeau, celles qui baiseraient n’importe qui voulant bien d’elles, les grosses putes, les petites salopes, les femmes à chatte toujours sèche, celles qui ont un gros bides, celles qui voudraient être des hommes, celles qui se prennent pour des hommes, celles qui rêvent de faire hardeuses, celles qui n’en ont rien à foutre des mecs mais que leurs copines intéressent, celles qui ont un gros cul, celles qui ont les poils drus et bien noirs et qui ne vont pas se faire épiler, les femmes brutales, bruyantes, celles qui cassent tout sur leur passage, celles qui n’aiment pas les parfumeries, celles qui se mettent du rouge trop rouge, celles qui sont trop mal foutues pour pouvoir se saper comme des chaudasses mais qui en crèvent d’envie, celles qui veulent porter des fringues d’hommes et la barbe dans la rue, celles qui veulent tout montrer, celles qui sont pudiques par complexe, celles qui ne savent pas dire non, celles qu’on enferme pour les mater, celles qui font peur, celles qui font pitié, celles qui ne font pas envie, celles qui ont la peau flasque, des rides plein la face, celles qui rêvent de se faire lifter, liposucer, péter le nez pour le refaire mais qui n’ont pas l’argent pour le faire, celles qui ne ressemblent à rien, celles qui ne comptent que sur elles-mêmes pour se protéger, celles qui ne savent pas être rassurantes, celles qui s’en foutent de leurs enfants, celles qui aiment boire jusqu’à se vautrer par terre dans les bars, celles qui ne savent pas se tenir.