Elena Ferrante Quotes
At that moment I knew what the plebs were, much more clearly than when, years earlier, she had asked me. The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer. They were all laughing, even Lila, with the expression of one who has a role and will play it to the utmost.
Quotes to Explore
-
Architecture is my work, and I've spent my whole life at a drawing board, but life is more important than architecture. What matters is to improve human beings.
-
I have changed so much as an actor over the years.
-
Cornwall bears a certain resemblance to Italy: each is like a leg or boot, but Italy stands a-tiptoe to the south, whereas Cornwall is thrust out to the west. But, whereas Italy is kicking Sicily as a football, Cornwall has but the shattered group of the Scilly Isles at its toe.
-
I like that about London. It comes together when it needs to, and it has magic.
-
For me, compatibility is a sense of humour, being able to laugh together; that is very important.
-
The notion that female initiative is useless because men know what they want is particularly odd - most people don't even know what they want for dinner.
-
The older I get the more of my mother I see in myself.
-
I love science fiction. I always have, ever since I was a kid. I love a lot of science fiction writers. William Gibson is one of my favorite writers.
-
I also use women as a sex object; maybe I'm kinky. However, I like to talk to them as well.
-
You need to have people within your own party that have the wherewithal to stand up to you.
-
It's very special having a new little girl.
-
Yeats, protected to some extent by the Nationalistic movement, wrote out of a somewhat protected world, and so his work does not touch life deeply.
-
Yes, Heathrow is the U.K.'s busiest airport, but new runways or a new airport are not the answer. It is far better to focus on improving capacity.
-
By 1988, I was living in New York myself.
-
The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.
-
I'm proud to be part of the resistance.
-
I think if a girl is easy to talk to then that's the first thing I look for. It's great when you meet a girl and three hours later you're like, 'Oh my gosh, we've been talking for three hours, what happened to the time?'
-
What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.
-
My great fear of being attacked or trivialized by my contemporaries made me concentrate on what I was trying to do as a writer. It forced me to draw some conclusions that were my own.
-
Listening is the key to everything good in music.
-
I'm my own biggest critic, so no matter what was being said in the media or being said by fans, I feel the worst when I disappoint myself.
-
I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.
-
At that moment I knew what the plebs were, much more clearly than when, years earlier, she had asked me. The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer. They were all laughing, even Lila, with the expression of one who has a role and will play it to the utmost.
