dhaifina arifah’s Reviews > Forbidden Notebook > Status Update

“I studied literature, music, art history. I was taught only what is beautiful and sweet in life. Mirella studies forensic medicine. She knows everything. For me books were a weakness that I had to overcome little by little, over the years; they give her the pitiless force that divides us.”

“At a certain age,” he continued, “everything we’ve done is no longer enough. It was useful only in making us what we are. And just as we are, now that we’re truly ourselves, what we’ve wanted to be or could be, we’d like to start to live again, consciously, according to our current tastes. Instead, we have to continue to live the life we chose when we were someone else.”

“That is what disgusts me, mamma. You think you’re obliged to serve everyone, starting with me. So, little by little, the others end up believing it. You think that for a woman to have some personal satisfaction, besides those of the house and the kitchen, is a fault, that her job is to serve. I don’t want that, you understand? I don’t want that.”

“I’d be happy to know that you enjoy work, too, maybe because then I’d feel less guilty of having burdened your life. You see, excuse my sincerity, but sometimes children feel almost ashamed of having been born, of needing to eat, to have clothes.”

literally will highlight the whole book