Quotes from Elena Ferrante

We walked for a long time. We kissed, we embraced on the Lungarno, I asked him, half serious, half joking, if he wanted to sneak into my room. He shook his head, he went back to kissing me passionately. There were entire libraries separating him and Antonio, but they were similar.

Piénsalo. Una mujer separada, con dos hijas y tus ambiciones, ha de tener en cuenta la realidad y decidir a qué puede renunciar y a qué no. No hubo palabra de esta última frase que no me disgustara.

If she kept him next to her she was afraid of breaking him, if she pushed him too far away she was afraid of losing him.

When the baby emerged and I saw her, black-haired, a violet organism that, full of energy, writhed and wailed, I felt a physical pleasure so piercing that I still know no other pleasure that compares to it

Lila always knew what she wanted and got it; I don't want anything, I'm made of nothing. I hoped to wake in the morning without desires. Once I was emptied—I imagined—the affection of Antonio, my affection for him will be enough.

Gone was the pleasure of re-educating my voice, my gestures, my way of dressing and walking, as if I were competing for the prize of best disguise, the mask worn so well that it was almost a face.

Writing requires maximum ambition, maximum audacity, and programmatic disobedience.

Then he added, in an almost threatening tone: Without these rasping hands, professor, not a chair would exist, or a building, a car, nothing, not even you; if we workers stopped working everything would stop, the sky would fall to earth and the earth would shoot up the sky, the plants would take over the cities, the Arno would flood your fine houses, and only those who have always worked would know how to survive, and as for you two, you with all your books, the dogs would tear you to pieces.

If she had already yielded, if she had already swallowed that insult, her bond with Stefano must truly be strong. She loved him, she loved him like the girls in the photonovels. For her whole life she would sacrifice to him every quality of her own, and he wouldn't even be aware of the sacrifice, he would be surrounded by the wealth of feeling, intelligence, imagination that were hers, without knowing what to do with them, he would ruin them.

Ich kam mir verrückt vor, leichtsinnig, aber ich war froh darüber. Ein Teil von mir war es leid, immer die Vernünftige zu spielen.

Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote. I remember the dialect on my mother's lips when she lost that gentle cadence and yelled at us, poisoned by her unhappiness: I can't take you anymore, I can't take any more.

Evocai versi e romanzi come tranquillanti. Forse, pensai, aver studiato mi serve solo a questo: a calmarmi.

it possible that our parents never die, that every child inevitably conceals them in himself? Would my mother truly emerge from me, with her limping gait, as my destiny?

tenía miedo de que me acusaran de ser como era de hecho, distraída y ausente, concentrada en mí misma.

I mean that a party can't be anything other than a distributor of favors in exchange for support, ideals are part of the furniture.

The depressed don't write books. People who are happy write, people who travel, are in love, and talk and talk with the conviction that, one way or another, their words always go to the right place.

Aunt Lina said that spirits existed, but not in the places, or in the alleys, or near the ancient gates of the Vatso. They existed in people's ears, in the eyes when eyes looked inside and not out, in the voice as soon as it begins to speak, in the head when it thinks, because words are full of ghosts but so are images. Is it true, Mamma?

Ich würde immer Angst haben: Angst davor, einen falschen Satz zu sagen, einen übertriebenen Ton anzuschlagen, unpassend gekleidet zu sein, kleinliche Gefühle zu offenbaren, keine interessanten Gedanken zu haben.

The relationship between money and the possession of things had disappointed her.

e io, malgrado tutti i miei cambiamenti, seguitavo a esserle subalterna. Di quella subalternità sentii che non sarei mai riuscita a liberarmi e questo mi sembrò insopportabile. Desiderai – e non riuscii a tenere a bada il desiderio – che il cardiologo si fosse sbagliato, che Armando avesse ragione, che lei fosse davvero malata e morisse.

E infine si mise a ridere e proclamò con una certa solennità: "Io non mi innamorerò mai di nessuno e non scriverò mai mai mai una poesia". "Non ci credo". "E' così". "Ma gli altri si innamoreranno di te". "Peggio per loro". "Soffriranno come questa Didone". "No, si andranno a fidanzare con un'altra, proprio come ha fatto Enea, che alla fine si è messo con la figlia di un re".

Lo observé con atención. Él era exactamente así. No quedaba nada que pudiese interesarme de él. No era siquiera un fragmento del pasado, era solo una mancha, como la huella que una mano dejó años atrás en una pared.

Bons ou maus, os homens acham todos que por qualquer façanha deles tens de lhes erguer um altar, como o São Jorge a matar o dragão.

No, words rarely go to the right place, and if they do, it's only for a very brief time. Otherwise they're useful for speaking nonsense, as now. Or for pretending that everything is under control." "Pretending? You who have always kept everything under control, you were pretending?" "Why not? It's unavoidable to pretend a little.