Elena Ferrante Quotes

Why, then, even when I advanced, was I so quick to retreat? Why did I always have ready a gracious smile, a happy laugh, when things went badly? Why, sooner or later, did I always find plausible excuses for those who made me suffer?

Elena Ferrante

• Smile
• Excuses
• Retreat
• Advanced

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Quotes to Explore

• I have a nice smile, pretty lips, and big round cheeks. They help me look like a teenager.

  

  Gabourey Sidibe
  • Help
  • Pretty
  • Me

• Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.

  

  Paramahansa Yogananda
  • Heart
  • May
  • Soul

• I have a smile 24/7.

  

  Candis Cayne
  • Smile

• If women had to promise to provide for a man for a lifetime before he removed his veil and showed her his smile, would we think of this as a system of female privilege?

  

  Warren Farrell
  • Women
  • Man
  • Smile

• My children and my husband make me smile. My work makes me smile.

  

  Victoria Beckham Spice Girls
  • Work
  • Children
  • Husband

• From a very young age, music was very much in my house. I would sit with my mom, with the old LPs, listening to The Beatles and Carly Simon and Lionel Richie. The old LPs used to have the lyrics. From there, I would put on dance and music displays for my family, just to entertain them and make people laugh and smile.

  

  Lara Pulver
  • People
  • Music
  • Family

• I get accused of having a haughty smugness. I have a lopsided mouth. I can't help it. I was born with it. It looks as if I am smirking. I have had my publicist tell me, 'Don't do that smile on the red carpet.' I'm, like, 'That's my smile.'

  

  Natalie Dormer
  • Smile
  • Smugness
  • Lopsided Mouth

• I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Great
  • Proud
  • Travel

• Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Wise
  • Smile
  • Rich

• Crowds are the most difficult thing for me these days because I have to walk with my head down and my eyes averted. There's still that part of me that wants to hold my head up, make eye contact and smile.

  

  Cameron Diaz
  • Up
  • Eyes
  • Eye

• Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Life
  • Morning
  • Smile

• The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the 'bad' mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is, in reality, good.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Good
  • Bad
  • Mother

• Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.

  

  Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Writing
  • Children
  • Book

• For ne'erWas flattery lost on poet's ear:A simple race! they waste their toilFor the vain tribute of a smile.

  

  Walter Scott
  • Lost
  • Simple
  • Smile

• What is the reason that we find it so satisfactory to make excuses to ourselves-the only persons in the world to whom they must be altogether needless ?

  

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon
  • World
  • Excuses

• We have no time for excuses.

  

  Ben Carson
  • Time
  • Excuses

• When are we going to stop making excuses for the terrorists and saying that somebody is making them do it? No, these are simply evil people who want to kill.

  

  Condoleezza Rice
  • People
  • Stop
  • Evil

• Who wants to brave those bronze beautiesLying in the sun.With their long soft hair fallingFlying as they run.Oh they smile so shyAnd they flirt so wellAnd they lay you down so fastTill you look straight up and sayOh lord, am I really here at last?

  

  Bob Seger
  • Up
  • Long
  • Hair

• To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.

  

  Edward Young
  • Pain
  • Smile

• I used to play works in progress to people, but now I wait 'til it's finished, because you make excuses all the time: 'Well, there's gonna be an orchestra on it.' Rather than make excuses, wait 'til it's finished, and then they can say they don't like it.

  

  Chris Lowe Pet Shop Boys
  • People
  • Time
  • Progress

• When the money dries up, the sites die off. That's the way to go after piracy.

  

  Jared Polis
  • Up
  • Money
  • Die

• If your whole world of a band or music is taking place in a digital realm or on technological devices, it's all mediated through those things. That takes away from the experiential and sensual nature of music. That's a lot less exciting for me to think about. It's not my ideal way of living with music.

  

  Carrie Brownstein
  • World
  • Thinking
  • Sensual

• And judging what is appropriate or not appropriate for a country, I think it is important in particular in judging what is the appropriate economic policy framework, one should take into account the overall political environment and the institutional framework within which economic policy operates.

  

  Lucas Papademos
  • Important
  • Country
  • Political

• Why, then, even when I advanced, was I so quick to retreat? Why did I always have ready a gracious smile, a happy laugh, when things went badly? Why, sooner or later, did I always find plausible excuses for those who made me suffer?

  

  Elena Ferrante
  • Smile
  • Excuses
  • Retreat