Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (The Neapolitan Novels, #3)

by Elena Ferrante

life began to pound me without respite, the months were rapidly grafted onto one another,

the joy of having done well is rare, unstable, that it lasts an hour, an afternoon, a night?

I know that you are a true comrade, I know that you understand: here we workers have never even been within the regular wage scales, we’re outside all the rules, we’re less than zero. So, it’s blasphemy to say: leave me alone, I have my own problems and I want to mind my own business.

The mind, ah yes, the evil is there, it’s the mind’s discontent that causes the body to get sick.