Dacia Maraini Quotes

Friendship is a form of love. In fact, you don't know how it starts or why. It is subject to the caprices of time. It can grow or die without a reason. It can last a lifetime.

Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them.

I dream of continuing to dream.

The waves have the habit of going forward and then flowing back.

The future is created through memory.

One writes what one lives, even if not in a literal way. Someone who has gone through an unhappy love tends to describe unhappy loves, even if they have nothing to do with their own.

A winter without snow seems depressing, lacking.

Writing is a solitary activity, it requires isolation and silence.

A writer is first and foremost a witness of her time. She must tell the truth, not take a political position. But then the truth that she discovers is profoundly political.

He talked and talked because he didn't know what to say.

Aging has brought me greater liberty in fiction. When I was young I was harder on myself. I wrote with an idea of absolute seriousness.

What strikes me most of all in Christian culture, which is supposed to be concerned with the rights of the weakest, is the lack of regard toward animals. Maybe because they're thought to be soulless.

I consider myself an aware person who is sensitive to injustice.

Something struck me in Africa, in black Africa, where polygamy is legal: the solitary woman is the rule there, from at an extremely young age, and the children are always the mother's responsibility.

To leave a book is like leaving the better part of oneself.

I don't always understand my characters. I write to understand them better.

Falling in love with a story is like falling in love with a person. It tends to occupy your life, your thoughts. You can't do anything else for a long time.