peenit

“I discovered everywhere female automatons created by men. There was nothing of ourselves, and the little there was that rose up in protest immediately became material for their manufacturing.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“They were pretending to be a mother and father with their baby, but it wasn’t peaceful: they were pretending to have a fight. I stopped. Dede instructed Mirko: You have to hit me, understand? The new living flesh was replicating the old in a game, we were a chain of shadows who had always been on the stage with the same burden of love, hatred, desire, and violence.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“I think that beauty is a sham.”
“Like the Leopardian garden?”
I didn’t know anything about Leopardian gardens, but I answered, “Yes. Like the sea on a calm day. Or like a sunset. Or like the sky at night. It’s like face powder patted on over the horror. If you take it away, we are left alone with our fear.”
― Elena Ferrante

“What did he become for her in that period? A sexual yearning that kept her in a state of permanent erotic fantasy; a blazing up of her mind that wanted to be at the same level as his; above all an abstract plan for a secret couple, hiding in a kind of refuge that was to be part bungalow for two hearts, part workshop of ideas on the complexity of the world, he present and active, she a shadow glued to his footsteps, cautious prompter, fervent collaborator.”
― Elena Ferrante