«Sade's adventure has a broad human significance. Can we satisfy our aspirations to universality without denying our individuality? Or can we only integrate into the community by sacrificing our differences? This problem affects us all. In Sade, the differences are exaggerated to the point of scandal, and the immensity of his literary work shows us how passionately he wanted to be accepted by the human community: in him we thus find, in its most extreme form, the conflict that no individual can escape. without lying to yourself. Here is the paradox and, in a certain sense, the triumph of Sade: in that by insisting on his singularities he helps us to define the human drama in its generality. »

Simone deBeauvoir