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.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing is wrong with her that is dangerous or harmful. She just feels deeper than others

The Christian will find his parentheses for prayer even in the busiest hours of life.

Do you realise how much trouble you're in?" "Perhaps I'll have some Weetabix after all.

A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

So, on the eastern summit, clad in gray, morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes, and from his tower of mist night's watchman hurries down.

A woman whose heart is not touched by the sickness of sorrow and whose hands do not go out in relief where it is in her power to help, lacks one of the elements which make the glory of womanhood.

Doing the right thing is not the problem. Knowing what the right thing is, that's the challenge.

I don't go by the rule book

There is no abiding success without commitment.

A way of life which excludes the realm of the unknown and the mysterious is simply not in harmony with life itself.