Nicole > Nicole's Quotes

“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Being beautiful, was that for men?'
'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others".”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“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? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Inevitably, with memory comes pain.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Because I want to know! Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that's not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it's any use, but for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I will never be able to use it.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn't forbidden, and they intervene, then it's not the activity that's attracting the attention, it is you yourself.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Talking is existing.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“I cannot mourn for what I have not known.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“even a person raised in captivity learns to want, yearns to see beyond their cage. How much of our humanity is intrinsic? How much remains, when all else is stripped away?”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods, I who have never known men.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Sometimes the women pitied me, saying that at least they'd known real life, and I was very jealous of them, but they died, as I am about to die, and what does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“I wondered what would make me stop, whether it would be hunger, sleep or boredom – in other words, what prompts decisions when you are utterly alone.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men