Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.

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Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.

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Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems. - Jonathan Gottschall

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Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself. - Simone de Beauvoir

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When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior. - Simone de Beauvoir

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Art is an attempt to integrate evil. - Simone de Beauvoir

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I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.

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It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time. - Simone de Beauvoir

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Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot. - Leigh Brackett

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I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me. - Simone de Beauvoir

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