I Who Have Never Known Men Quotes
"I spend a lot of time in one of the armchairs, rereading the books."
"They often seem to feel the need to emphasize that they wrote the book not out of vanity, but because someone asked them to."
"How strange! It suggests that people were not avid to learn, and that you had to apologize for wanting to convey your knowledge."
"True, I am extremely ignorant: apparently, I know even less of these matters than I thought I did."
"I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip forever."
"I think that that is what they call being consumed with remorse."
"I found this abrupt swing from one to the other funny, and there I was, doubled up in agony, and laughing."
"I realised then that I never thought about the past. I lived in a perpetual present and I was gradually forgetting my story."
"Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering?"
"All the same, when I did find out, I felt they hadn’t really made an effort to teach me. I was furious."
"They’d giggle and tease me when I asked what was so funny."
"I no longer tried to persuade the women to tell me their secrets; I had my own."
"I was oblivious, because I wasn’t bothered about them anymore."
"You’re a fool,' I retorted, intoxicated by my new-found certainties."
"What do you mean, "why"? Why should I answer? Why do you think it goes without saying?"
"Seeing as they forbid any authority other than theirs, you can neither beat me nor make me go without. Why should I obey you?"
"I was back in the gloomy cell where I was in solitary confinement."
"In dying, they’d be abandoning me once more."
"I was happier when I hadn’t understood anything."
"I threw myself into her arms before I realized what I was doing."
"I felt a delicious shiver. That was, I think, my first intellectual pleasure."
"I realised that she was right and that the secrets of love were none of my business."
"We’re the result of an administrative blunder."
"I wanted to feel that sensation all the time, day and night."
"I was no longer living according to a twenty-four-hour cycle."
"I was no longer thinking of them. I’d created the only new thing possible in our static lives."
"I realised that an argument was brewing, and that would have given them an outlet for their anxiety and set them all against me."
"It’s not long since they left the bunker and there’s no trace of them."
"I'm soaking wet. I'd forgotten what it's like. It's such a long time..."
"The clouds are light. It must be the middle of the day, you can see the sun is high."
"I won't go down there. I'd rather die of hunger."
"This is the first time that I’d ever found myself alone."
"If you stop, I'll say to myself that half an hour later we might have found something, and I'll die angry."
"But it's all so ordinary, it's the same as everybody else!"
"In this world, how can we tell what's normal?"
"I can't work out how long all this will last, but even with forty of us, it looks to me as if there's enough to keep us going for years."
"But this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine."
"I realised that she’d lost all interest in her life."
"I’m sure that was the one where I found milk, but afterwards, which one was it where I found tea?"
"We never found any socks and the skin of my feet had become soft, but I knew it would soon harden."
"If she didn’t remember that everyone was dead, why remind her?"
"I could have touched her, for sure, run my hands over her cheeks, but would she have felt it?"
"I wondered what would make me stop, whether it would be hunger, sleep or boredom."
"I promised myself sweet dreams that night. I don’t know if I had them."
"I knew nothing about him, but I knew nothing about myself."
"It took me in a south-west direction. I wondered whether it would lead to something."