Quotes from Elena Ferrante

Non era riuscito a stare zitto, l'amicizia tra maschi ha i suoi patti non scritti ma solidi, non come quella tra femmine.

The four volumes known as the "Neapolitan quartet" (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018.

That he's no one. And for a person who is no one to become someone is more important than anything else.

But in a confused way I felt that if I ran away with the others I would leave with her something of mine that she would never give back.

Nino tem algo que o devora por dentro, assim como Lila, o que é um dom e um sofrimento, não são alegres, não se abandonam, temem o que acontece a ser redor...

And that is how I see it today: it's not the neighborhood that's sick, it's not Naples, it's the entire earth, it's the universe, or universes. And shrewdness means hiding and hiding from oneself the true state of things.

Ya entonces había algo que me impedía abandonarla. No la conocía bien, nunca nos habíamos dirigido la palabra y aun así estábamos enzarzadas en una competición continua, en clase y fuera. Pero sentía confusamente que si hubiese salido corriendo junto a las demás, le habría dejado a ella algo mío que luego no me devolvería nunca.

I had too many worries and, whatever I did, the feeling of always being in the wrong.

Quante parole restano impronunciabili anche all'interno di una coppia che si ama, e com'è elevato il rischio che altri le pronuncino distruggendola.

Si a la mujer la sabes educar, bien. Si no la sabes educar, déjala correr, que te hará daño.

Krása, kterou mÄ›la Cerullová odmali?ka v hlavÄ›, nenaÅ¡la cestu ven, Grecová, celá se jí vrazila do obli?eje, do prsou, do stehen a do prdele, do míst, kde rychle uvadne a je to, jako bys ji nikdy nemÄ›la.

when you don't know how to keep a man you lose everything, (…)

toda escolha tem sua história, muitos momentos de nossa vida estão espremidos num canto só esperando uma brecha, e no final essa brecha aparece.

As we talked I realized she wanted many things at the same time, and that kept her in a permanent state of dissatisfaction.

I began to weep with loneliness. What was I, who was I? I felt pretty again, my pimples were gone, the sun and the sea had made me slimmer, and yet the person I liked and whom I wished to be liked by showed no interest in me. What signs did I carry, what fate?

When some handsome youth fell, pierced by a blade beaten on the anvil of death, immediately beggars, bourgeois citizens, kings and queens offered applause that rose to the stars. Ah, the violence: tearing, killing, ripping.

Você entende, Lenu, o que acontece com as pessoas: a gente tem coisa demais por dentro, e isso nos incha, nos arrebenta.

What seemed to interest and absorb her most was that all that filth, all that chaos of broken limbs and dug-out eyes and split heads was then covered—literally covered—by a church dedicated to San Giovanni Battista and by a monastery of Augustinian hermits who had a valuable library. Ah, ah—she laughed—underneath there's blood and above, God, peace, prayer, and books.

Si fermò in tempo ma non abbastanza perché non capissi: fu come quando uno fa cenno di volerti dare uno schiaffo e poi non te lo dà.

se sentiu humilhada por ter passado a vida atribuindo um poder a coisas que, nas hierarquias ordinárias, contavam muito pouco: o alfabeto, a escrita, os livros.

What is clear to me, always, is that the writing must never lose sight of truth as its ultimate goal. Page after page, the drive to capture what is true, and not what resembles the truth, shapes the work. If, even for a few passages, the tone becomes false—that is, too studied, too limpid, too regimented, too well-phrased—I am obliged to stop and to figure out where I started to go wrong. If I can't, I throw everything away.

That fact remains that I, who had successfully completed a theological correspondence course, raised my hand and said that the human condition was so obviously exposed to the blind fury of chance that to trust in a God, a Jesus, the Holy Spirit - this last a completely superfluous entity, it was there only to make up a trinity, notoriously nobler than the mere binomial father-son - was the same thing as collecting trading cards while the city burns in the fires of hell.

o sonho de um progresso sem limites é na verdade um pesadelo cheio de fúria e de morte.

Lei riteneva di fare una cosa giusta e necessaria, io ero lì solo perché c'era lei. Saliamo lentamente verso il più grande dei nostri terrori di allora, andavamo a esporci alla paura e a interrogarla. Alla quarta rampa Lila si comportò in modo inatteso. Si fermò ad aspettarmi e quando la raggiunsi mi diede la mano. Questo gesto cambiò tutto tra noi.