The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels #2)

by Elena Ferrante

If nothing could save us, not money, not a male body, and not even studying, we might as well destroy everything immediately.

For her whole life she would sacrifice to him every quality of her own, and he wouldn’t even be aware of the sacrifice, he would be surrounded by the wealth of feeling, intelligence, imagination that were hers, without knowing what to do with them, he would ruin them.

Is it possible that our parents never die, that every child inevitably conceals them in himself?

she possessed a mysterious power that annihilated them but because, on the contrary, she was an inadequate woman.

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

There are moments when we resort to senseless formulations and advance absurd claims to hide straightforward feelings.

I said to myself every day: I am what I am and I have to accept myself; I was born like this, in this city, with this dialect, without money; I will give what I can give, I will take what I can take, I will endure what has to be endured.