Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book

Nicky Singh

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Nicky.


How Westminster W...
Rate this book
Clear rating

progress: 
 
  (page 30 of 417)
Dec 26, 2023 10:15PM

 
Loading...
Orhan Pamuk
“People only tell lies when there is something they are terribly frightened of losing.”
Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Simone de Beauvoir
“And without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one's liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Virginia Woolf
“At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world.”
Virginia Wolfe

Simone de Beauvoir
“When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. Being poorly integrated in the universe of humanity and hardly able to adapt herself therein, she, like the child, is able to see it objectively; instead of being interested solely in her grasp on things, she looks for their significance; she catches their special outlines, their unexpected metamorphoses. She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.”
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Simone de Beauvoir
“If they want to flirt or initiate a friendship, they should carefully avoid giving the impression they are taking the initiative; men do not like tomboys, nor bluestockings, nor thinking women; too much audacity, culture, intelligence, or character frightens them.

In most novels, as George Eliot observes, it is the dumb, blond heroine who outshines the virile brunette; and in The Mill on the Floss, Maggie tries in vain to reverse the roles; in the end she dies and it is blond Lucy who marries Stephen. In The Last of the Mohicans, vapid Alice wins the hero’s heart and not valiant Cora; in Little Women kindly Jo is only a childhood friend for Laurie; he vows his love to curly-haired and insipid Amy.

To be feminine is to show oneself as weak, futile, passive, and docile. The girl is supposed not only to primp and dress herself up but also to repress her spontaneity and substitute for it the grace and charm she has been taught by her elder sisters. Any self-assertion will take away from her femininity and her seductiveness.”
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

179584 Our Shared Shelf — 222882 members — last activity Sep 03, 2026 04:47AM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
year in books
Ben Ave...
224 books | 46 friends

Kabir K...
438 books | 19 friends

Cerys
1,518 books | 70 friends

Andrew ...
293 books | 288 friends

Fifi
874 books | 36 friends

Ayan
12 books | 57 friends

Rene
569 books | 47 friends

Aditya ...
118 books | 36 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by Nicky

Lists liked by Nicky