Barbarism is not the inheritance of our prehistory. It is the companion that dogs our every step.

Qu'est-ce-que faire l'amour ? c'est languir après le tout proche, comme si une fois levés tout les obstacles, , dans le contact des peaux, et l'entralacement des epidermes, l'Autre refusait encore de se laisser prendre.

On problems finding female ancestors,of any background, remember "I cannot put gas in my car without a note from my husband. The Car, the house, and everything else I think that I own is in his name. When I die, I cannot decide who will receive my personal effects. If he dies first I may be allowed to stay in my own home, or may be given a certain number of days to vacate the premises. Any real estate I inherit from my husband is not mine to sell of devise in a will. All the money I earn belongs to my husband. I cannot operate or engage in business in my own name. If my ancestor is enslaved, I cannot marry, may not be allowed to raise my own children, join a church, travel freely, own property or testify against those who harm me.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

The human race is a letdown, Ernest — a bad, bad letdown. And I’m disgusted with it. It thinks it’s progressed, but it hasn’t. It thinks it’s risen above the primeval slime, but it hasn’t. It’s wallowing in it. It’s still clinging to us, clinging to our hair and to our eyes and to our souls. We’ve invented a few things that make noises, but we haven’t invented one big thing that creates quiet. Endless, peaceful quiet. Something to pull over us like a gigantic eiderdown, something to deaden the sound of our emotional yellings and screechings and suffocate our psychological confusions.

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.