Lauren

“She possessed intelligence and didn't put it to use but, rather, wasted it, like a great lady for whom all the riches of the world are merely a sign of vulgarity. That was the fact that must have beguiled Nino: the gratuitousness of Lila's intelligence.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

“She took the facts and in a natural way charged them with tension; she intensified reality as she reduced it to words, she injected it with energy.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“Ah, the violence: tearing, killing, ripping. Lila, between fascination and horror, spoke to me in a mixture of dialect, Italian, and very educated quotations that she had taken from who knows where and remembered by heart. The entire planet, she said, is a big Fosso Carbonario.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

“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