Vanessa

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

“How can I explain to this woman—I thought—that from the age of six I've been a slave to letters and numbers, that my mood depends on the success of their combinations, that the joy of having done well is rare, unstable, that it lasts an hour, an afternoon, a night?”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“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

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
― Oliver Sacks, Gratitude