Quotes from Alberto Moravia

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

In life there are no problems, that is, objective and external choices there is only the life which we do not resolve as a problem but which we live as an experience, whatever the final result may be.

Aquella anormalidad que se traducía en su desapego, en su ausencia de la vida común? Los hombres normales no eran buenos, porque la normalidad se paga siempre, consciente o inconscientemente, a un precio muy caro, con una serie de complicidad, estupidez, vileza, cuando no precisamente de criminalidad.

Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

Giuro davanti a Dio che non toccherò mai più né i fiori, né le piante, né le lucertole.

Le esperienze che contano sono spesso quelle che non avremmo mai voluto fare, non quelle che decidiamo noi di fare. ALBERTO MORAVIA (1907-1990)

Se sentía completamente tranquilo, frío; si acaso, un poco triste; era una tristeza misteriosa que consideraba ya inseparable de su carácter.

No era fácil distinguir la claridad del miedo. Y tal vez la mejor solución consistiría en guardar, como siempre, una actitud decorosa e impasible.

Ne možeš dati sud o onome koga voliš.

L'innamoramento è una catastrofe esistenziale che ci coinvolge in maniera radicale anche se del tutto oscura.

the people--want to live in peace and to be loved for who they are, to fuck and be fucked. It means we are predestined by history to be the cuckolds of humanity...She betrayed us because we did not love her for who she is, without ulterior motives.

It may seem strange, but the idea that Maurizio might also hold his own weapons, or even the same ones, did not occur to me. And yet I should have suspected that Nella and the Party could also be turned against me. But that is how we men are made: we see everything from our own point of view and have great difficulty imagining another perspective.

Things that are understood are not scandalized. Shock - scandal is basically fear. The scandal is, after all, the fear of losing one's personality. In short, the shocked person is uncertain, hence a conformist.

El, în definitiv, nu reuÈ™ea decât s? stârneasc? ilaritate: È™i nu È™tia s? fac? asta decât luând în batjocur? anumite lucruri. Iar aceste lucruri, din întâmplare, erau tocmai acelea pe care nu reuÈ™ise s? le aib? în via??.

P?rea s?-l considere tot mai mult pe Sergio un soi de pierde-var? din categoria trist? È™i inert?, un intelectual adic?, iar de data asta Sergio nu putea spune c? nu are dreptate, era într-adev?r un intelectual din cea mai rea spe??, credea, un om a c?rui inteligen?? nu avea nimic creativ, nici util, ci servea doar ca s?-l îmboln?veasc? È™i s?-l paralizeze ca o otrav? rafinat?.

Fra le mille maniere di fare un'azione, scegliamo sempre istintivamente la peggiore.

mi innamorai nella sola maniera in cui sono capace di innamorarmi: lentissimamente, cominciando quasi con l'indifferenza e finendo con la passione.

Si accorse che poteva ormai guardarla con freddezza e oggettività, con sguardo sgombro di sentimento. Prima, quando l'amava ancora, la contemplava senza veramente vederla; adesso la vedeva, come si vede un oggetto qualsiasi, senza contemplarla. (Piccola e gelosa)

Non è solo chi è solo; è solo chi si sente solo.

It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will.