Natalia Ginzburg

“Things, houses, and people are all sad when they are abandoned.”

“We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.”

“In my experience, you can't have a writer's life and a normal life. You can't.”

“It's a terrible thing to have a past. It's a terrible thing to have no past.”

“As for the vocation of writer, it's not a matter of choosing. You can believe you've chosen it, but at a certain point the choice is choosing you.”

“We must not be afraid of the tears of our children. For it is by this road that they must pass. And we cannot do anything for them. At the most, we can only kiss them.”

“Silence is a mortal illness. But we are afraid of the words that would save us.”

“What we must remember is that we are all in the same boat. And we are all seasick.”

“It is necessary to have patience, a great deal of patience. To be patient with others, but also with ourselves.”

“Writing is a way of getting rid of your own demons.”

“One writes what one is.”

“Love, I thought, is a painful and savage thing. It is a thing of teeth and claws.”

“There are certain moments in life when we are all alone.”

“The worst thing in the world is to be bored.”

“There's no point in telling your story if you're not going to be honest.”

“A house is a place where one can be what one wants to be.”

“As for the education of children, I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones.”