Marquise de Merteuil

When I came out into society, I was fifteen. I already knew that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learned how to look cheerful while, under the table, I stuck a fork into the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with. And in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die.

One does not applaud the tenor for clearing his throat.

Like most intellectuals, he's intensely stupid.

Well, I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has every thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own.

You'll find the shame is like the pain, you only feel it once.

When it comes to marriage, one man is as good as the next. And even the least accomodating is less trouble than a mother.

When one woman strikes at the heart of another she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.

'm saying, you stupid little girl, that provided you take a few elementary precautions you can do it or not as often as you like, with as many different men as you like, in as many different ways as you like.

One of the reasons I never re-married, despite a bewildering range of offers, was the determination NEVER AGAIN to be ordered about.

Adopt a less marital tone of voice.