Quotes from Elena Ferrante

His wealth, his upbringing, his reputation, well known among the students, as a young militant on the left, his sociability, even his courage when he delivered carefully measured speeches against powerful people within and outside the university—all this had given him an aura that automatically extended to me, as his fiancée or girlfriend or companion, as if the pure and simple fact that he loved me were the public sanctioning of my talents.

vivíamos, cuántos fragmentos de nosotros mismos salían volando como si vivir fuese estallar en esquirlas.

Lo que antes le parecía insoportable, ahora la alegra. Tal vez debería decirle que las cosas carentes de sentido son las más hermosas

One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.

Acaso todo en ella era fruto del desorden de las ocasiones?

Como tudo é suave, pensei, quando o dia está bonito e todas as coisas boas parecem estar esperando só por você.

The girl, perhaps without even realizing it, and who knows for how long, had been assessing the power of her swaying body, her restless eyes, on my husband; and he looked at her as one looks from a gray area at a white wall struck by the sun.

Buenos o malos, todos los hombres se creen que en cada una de sus empresas debes colocarlos en un altar cual san Jorge que mata al dragón.

La culpa no la tienen quienes se rebelan, la culpa la tienen quienes no saben gobernar.

Estrangement and belonging, an effect of distance and closeness at the same time.

Quieres toda la vida a personas que nunca sabes realmente quiénes son

I wanted him to see in that plate of pasta everything that, by leaving, he would no longer be able to look at, or touch, or caress, listen to, smell: never again.

Eliminemos todos los filtros que nos impiden saborear con plenitud este estar aquí y ahora, verdaderos.

This is what awaits me, I thought. Evenings like this. Appearing at the house of strangers, marked as a woman waiting to remake her life.

Translators transport nations into other nations. They are the first to reckon with distant modes of feeling. Even their mistakes are evidence of a positive force. Translation is our salvation. It draws us out of the well in which, entirely by chance, we are born.

A veces no me gustas, Lenù, lo subestimas todo, subestimas a todos, incluso a la gente que con solo verla se hace querer.

Are you seeing him?" he asked indifferently. I laughed, a kind of sob.

No he cambiado en el aspecto, sino en lo profundo. Pronto le tocará el turno al aspecto y ya no será aspecto

deprimidos no escriben libros. Los escriben las personas contentas, que viajan, que están enamoradas y que hablan, y hablan con la convicción de que de un modo u otro las palabras acaben siempre en el lugar correcto.

Es posible que incluso los momentos felices del placer no resistan nunca un examen riguroso?

She wanted not only to disappear herself, now, at the age of sixty-six, but also to eliminate the entire life that she had left behind.

Eh, she said once, what a fuss for a name: famous or not, it's only a ribbon tied around a sack randomly filled with blood, flesh, words, shit, and petty thoughts. She mocked me at length on that point: I untie the ribbon—Elena Greco—and the sack stays there, it functions just the same, haphazardly, of course, without virtues or vices, until it breaks.

A nova carne viva repetia a velha por brincadeira, éramos uma cadeia de sombras sempre encenada com a mesma carga de amor, de ódio, de vontades e de violência.

It was as if, because of an evil spell, the joy or sorrow of on required the sorrow or joy of the other; even our physical aspect, it seemed to me, shared in that swing.