Debauchery conceived of as a kind of ascetic experience is not new, either for men or for women, but until Story of O no woman to my knowledge had said it.

A truly submissive woman is to be treasured, cherished and protected for it is only she who can give a man the gift of dominance.

O felt that her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it . . .

Lovers and mystics are familiar with this sense of grandeur, this taste of joy - in abandoning oneself to the will of others.

To love is to live on the precipice.

Woman ... is the divine object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy, achieved through a subtle interplay of images, lies in contemplation of herself.

I think that submissiveness can [be] and is a formidable weapon, which women will use as long as it isn't taken from them.

Story of O is a fairy tale for another world, a world where some part of me lived for a long time, a world that no longer exists except between the covers of a book.

I wrote 'The story of O' alone, for Dominique Aury, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him. I wasn't young, nor particularly pretty. I needed something which might interest a man like him.

You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears.

By my makeup and temperament I wasn't really prey to physical desires. Everything happened in my head.

I'm not used to seeing people's faces. There's too much information there. Aren't you aware of it? Too much, too fast.

In general, those who resort to mass murder on a collective scale always put forward the justification that they acted on behalf of the nation.

In an election, one needs both hope and audacity.

How come when I was a kid, I couldn't be picked on bullies like that?

We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.

Well, another market is being created now out of Internet technology.

Europe is not a choice, it is a necessity, but it needs to be rethought, refounded.

She won't give him back his look.

The question is, not what rights naturally belong to man, but how they may be most equally and effectually guarded in society.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow.