Anne Desclos Quotes & Sayings

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

I think I have a repressed bent for the military, I like discipline without question, specific schedules and duties. — Anne Desclos

Men are foolish to expect us to revere them, when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing. — Anne Desclos

The voluntary captive
The speechless the prisoner
Which I hide in my very depths ... — Anne Desclos

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. — Anne Desclos

I found that stiffly saluting member, of which he was so proud, rather frightening, and to tell the truth I found his pride slightly comical. I thought that that must be embarrassing for him, and thought how much more pleasant it was to be a girl. That, by the way, is an opinion I still hold today. — Anne Desclos

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. — Anne Desclos

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

I wrote it alone, for him, 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. — Anne Desclos

To love is to live on the precipice. — Anne Desclos

I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons. — Anne Desclos

Who I am finally, if not the long silent part of someone, the secret and nocturnal part which has never betrayed itself in public by any thought, word, or deed, but communicates through subterranean depths of the imaginary with dreams as old as the world itself? — Anne Desclos

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. — Anne Desclos

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. — Anne Desclos

A man in love ... is the master, so it seems, but only if his lady friend permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of the relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the course of an affair. Never is the complicity between victim and executioner more essential. Even chained, down on her knees, begging for mercy, it is the woman, finally, who is in command ... the all powerful slave, dragging herself along the ground at her master's heels, is now really the god. The man is only her priest, living in fear and trembling of her displeasure. — Anne Desclos

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

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