Alberto Moravia Quotes

And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating.

The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is constant, but nowadays the illiterates can read and write.

The less one notices happiness, the greater it is.

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

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

When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith.

I do not foresee a time when I shall feel that I have nothing to say.

War has become an affair of machines...and soldiers are little more than clever mechanics.

I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.

The novel as we knew it in the nineteenth century was killed off by Proust and Joyce.

I don't think it's possible to write a good novel around a negative personality.

A writer survives in spite of his beliefs.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

You can't think on purpose about somebody or something. Either you think about them naturally or you don't think at all.

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

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

The dark realization came to him that a difficult and miserable age had begun for him, and he couldn't imagine when it would end. [Puberty]

I gave up the unequal struggle against what appeared to be in my fate, indeed, I welcomed it with more affection. As one embraces a foe one can't defeat and I felt liberated.