Tara > Tara's Quotes

“Marriage by now seemed to me an institution that, contrary to what one might think, stripped coitus of all humanity.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“I thought of beauty as of a constant effort to eliminate corporeality. I wanted him to love my body forgetful of what one knows of bodies. Beauty, I thought anxiously, is this forgetfulness.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment

“Maybe I should tell her that things without a meaning are the most beautiful ones”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“I'm lying, yes, but why do you force me to give a linear explanation; linear explanations are almost always lies.”
― Elena Ferrante

“Even Tolstoy is an insignificant shadow if he takes a stroll with Anna Karenina.”
― Elena Ferrante, La frantumaglia

“Perhaps Lila was right: my book—even though it was having so much success—really was bad, and this was because it was well organized, because it was written with obsessive care, because I hadn’t been able to imitate the disjointed, unaesthetic, illogical, shapeless banality of things.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

“A child, yes, is a vortex of anxieties.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Lost Daughter

“You’re really a good girl, poor you.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow.”
― Lermontov a, Un Héros de notre temps. (précédé de) La Princesse Ligovskoï

“We practically always excuse things when we understand them”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“Tell me,” she finally whispered, “is it fun for you to torture me? . . . I should really hate you. Ever since we have known each other, you have given me nothing but suffering . . .” Her voice trembled, she leaned toward me, and lowered her head onto my breast.
“Perhaps,” I thought, “this is exactly why you loved me: joys are forgotten, but sadness, never . . .”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“Women only love those that they don’t know.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“Ever since poets have written and women have read them (for which the poets should be most deeply grateful) women have been called angels so many times that, in very truth, in their simplicity of soul, they have believed the compliment, forgetting that, for money, the same poets have glorified Nero as a demigod . . .”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“And then we had one of those conversations which make no sense on paper, which you can't repeat and can't even remember. The sounds mean more than the words, like in an Italian opera.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“It is incredible how fear is built into you, by your parents and others surrounding you. You’re so innocent in the beginning; you don’t know.”
― Marina Abramović, Walk Through Walls: A Memoir

“If you’re a woman, it’s almost impossible to establish a relationship. You’re too much for everybody. It’s too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you’re not, they’are fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave. So, lots of lonely hotel rooms, my dear.”
― Marina Abramović

“The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.”
― Marina Abramovic

“Each of us narrates our life as it suits us.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“There are people who leave and people who know how to be left.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“I would always be afraid: afraid of saying the wrong thing, of using an exaggerated tone, of dressing unsuitably, of revealing petty feelings, of not having interesting thoughts.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“If nothing could save us, not money, not a male body, and not even studying, we might as well destroy everything immediately.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Very early in my life it was too late.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.”
― Marguerite Duras, Practicalities

“She had lived her early years as though she were waiting for something she might, but never did, become.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Ravishing of Lol Stein

“Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dream about it. Happiness is for opportunists. So I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves.”
― Slavoj Žižek