Pervinca > Pervinca's Quotes

“Me encontraba entre los que se esforzaban dia y noche, que conseguían magníficos resultados, que eran tratados incluso con simpatía y aprecio, pero que jamás lucirían con la actitud adecuada la alta calidad de esos estudios. Siempre tendría miedo: miedo de decir la frase equivocada, de usar un tono excesivo, de ir vestida de forma inadecuada, de revelar sentimientos mezquinos, de no tener pensamientos interesantes”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Yo quería llegar a ser, aunque jamás había sabido qué. Y había llegado a ser, no cabía duda, pero sin un objetivo, sin una auténtica pasión, sin una resuelta ambición. Había querido llegar a ser algo -ese era el punto- solo porque temía que Lila llegara a ser a saber quién, dejándome a mí atrás. Mi llegar a ser era un llegar a ser siguiendo su estela. Debía proponerme llegar a ser, pero yo sola, como adulta, fuera de ella.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys."
Rhys clinked his glass against mine. “To the stars who listen— and the dreams that are answered.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I hate to lend a book I love…it never seems quite the same when it comes back to me…”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

“I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Al final llegué a la conclusión de que, en primer lugar, debía comprender mejor qué era yo. Indagar en mi naturaleza de mujer. Me había extralimitado, me había esforzado por dotarme de capacidades masculinas. Creía que debía saberlo todo, ocuparme de todo. Qué me importaban a mi la política, las luchas. Quería hacer un buen papel con los hombres, estar a la altura. A la altura de qué. De su razón, la más irrazonable. Tanto empeñarme en memorizar la jerga en boga, qué esfuerzo inútil. El estudio me había modelado la cabeza, la voz y me había condicionado. La de pactos secretos que había aceptado conmigo misma con tal de destacar. Y ahora, después del duro esfuerzo de aprender, qué debía desaprender.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“Qué pena la soledad femenina de las mentes, me decía, qué desperdicio este aislarse la una de la otra, sin protocolos, sin tradición. En estos casos me sentía como si tuviera pensamientos truncados por la mitad, atractivos y sin embargo defectuosos, requerían con urgencia una comprobación, un desarrollo, pero sin convicción, sin confianza en sí mismos. Entonces sentía otra vez ganas de llamarla por teléfono y decirle: Déjame contarte sobre lo que estoy reflexionando, por favor, hablemos, dame tu opinión, ¿te acuerdas de lo que me dijiste sobre Alfonso? Pero habíamos perdido la ocasión para siempre, hacía muchos años. Debía aprender a conformarme conmigo misma.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“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.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“But what seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“Time moves in it special way in the middle of the night.”
― Haruki murakami , After Dark

“I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times."
Takahashi swings his trombone case from his right shoulder to his left. Then he says, "It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does. And to acquire a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort. I don't think you have a particularly dark character.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“It's funny, most people can be around someone and they gradually begin to love them and never know exactly when it happened; but Ruth knew the very second it happened to her. When Idgie had grinned at her and tried to hand her that jar of honey, all these feelings that she had been trying to hold back came flooding through her, and it was at that second in time that she knew she loved Idgie with all her heart.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“So afterward, when you no longer love him, it bothers you just to think that you once wanted him.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“Maybe there’s something mistaken in this desire men have to instruct us; I was young at the time, and I didn’t realize that in his wish to transform me was the proof that he didn’t like me as I was, he wanted me to be different, or, rather, he didn’t want just a woman, he wanted the woman he imagined he himself would be if he were a woman. For Franco, I said, I was an opportunity for him to expand into the feminine, to take possession of it: I constituted the proof of his omnipotence, the demonstration that he knew how to be not only a man in the right way but also a woman. And today when he no longer senses me as part of himself, he feels betrayed. I”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“You're just a bee charmer, Idgie Threadgoode. That's what you are, a bee charmer.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“What was this power, this insidious threat, this invisible gun to her head that controlled her life . . . this terror of being called names?
She had stayed a virgin so she wouldn't be called a tramp or a slut; had married so she wouldn't be called an old maid; faked orgasms so she wouldn't be called frigid; had children so she wouldn't be called barren; had not been a feminist because she didn't want to be called queer and a man hater; never nagged or raised her voice so she wouldn't be called a bitch . . .
She had done all that and yet, still, this stranger had dragged her into the gutter with the names that men call women when they are angry.”
― Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart