Quotes from Elena Ferrante

Se non c'e' amore, non solo inaridisce la vita delle persone, ma anche quella delle citta' ". Non mi ricordo come si espresse di preciso, ma il concetto era quello, e io lo associai alle nostre strade sporche, ai giardinetti polverosi, alla campagna scempiata dai palazzi nuovi, alla violenza in ogni casa, in ogni famiglia.

Carracci's possessions, she, too, was Carracci's possession.

qui noi lavoratori non siamo stati mai neanche dentro le zone salariali, stiamo fuori da tutte le regole, stiamo sotto zero. Perciò è una bestemmia dire: lasciatemi in pace, io ho i miei problemi e mi voglio fare i fatti miei. Ognuno nel posto che gli è toccato, deve fare quello che può.

Questo distratto inseminare dei maschi, storditi dal piacere. Ci fecondano sopraffatti dal loro orgasmo. Si affacciano dentro di noi e si ritraggono lasciandoci, celato nella carne, il loro fantasma come un oggetto smarrito. Albertino era figlio della volontà, dell'attenzione? O anche lui era in braccio a questa donna-madre senza che Nino sentisse di averci a che fare?

Por eso, por favor, si te ofendo, si te digo cosas feas, tú tápate los oídos, no quiero hacerlo y pese a todo lo hago. Por favor, por favor, ahora no me dejes, que, si no, me vengo abajo.

She knew how to go beyond the limit without ever truly suffering the consequences. In the end people gave in, and were even, however unwillingly, compelled to praise her.

Scriveva, nelle ultime pagine, di sentirsi intorno tutto il male del rione. Anzi, buttava li oscuramente: male e bene sono mescolati e si rinforzano a vicenda. Marcello, a rifletterci, era veramente una buona sistemazione, ma il buono sapeva di cattivo e il cattivo sapeva di buono, un'amalgama che le toglieva il fiato.

Yes, Imma was consoled but only because Lila was introducing her to a permanent stream of splendors and miseries, a cyclical Naples where everything was marvelous and everything became gray and irrational and everything sparkled again, as when a cloud passes over the sun and the sun appears to flee, a timid, pale disk, near extinction, but not look, once the cloud dissolves it's suddenly dazzling again, so bright you have to shield your eyes with your hand.

Allora perché non ti rassegni? Colpa della testa che non sa calmarsi, cerca di continuo un modo per funzionare.

For your whole life you love people and you never really know who they are.

In quale disordine vivevamo, quanti frammenti di noi stessi schizzavano via come se vivere fosse esplodere in schegge.

I'm still fascinated by how our brains elaborates strategies and carries them out without revealing them. To say that it's a matter of the unconscious seems to me approximate, maybe even hypocritical.

hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other.

A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women's intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn't realize it.

she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to

Don Achille was the ogre of fairy tales

Should I restrain this shadow—my mother, all our female ancestors—or should I let her go?

horrors of inequality, violence, always carried

Los libros se escriben para hacerse oír, no para quedarse callados.

I take it for granted that she has found a way to disappear, to leave not so much as a hair anywhere in this world.

Esigeva che svilissi gli amanti recenti dimostrandogli che il mio unico desiderio era tornare a essere penetrata da lui. Voleva insomma riaffermare il suo primato, poi di sicuro sarebbe di nuovo sparito.

I had to accept myself outside of her.

See where that argument with the religion teacher led, every choice has its history, so many moments of our existence are shoved into a corner, waiting for an outlet, and in the end the outlet arrives. But I would have been exaggerating, in reality it was much simpler.

There is this presumption, in those who feel destined for art and above all literature: we act as if we had received an investiture, but in fact no one has ever invested us with anything, it is we who have authorized ourselves to be authors and yet we are resentful if others say: This little thing you did doesn't interest me, in fact it bores me, who gave you the right. (p.463)