Natalia Ginzburg Quotes & Sayings

As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know. — Natalia Ginzburg

When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers. — Natalia Ginzburg

The course of our lives follows ancient and immutable laws, with an ancient, changeless rhythm. Dreams never come true, and the instant they are shattered, we realize how the greatest joys of life lie beyond the realm of reality. The instant they are shattered we are sick with longing for the days when they flamed within us. Our fate spends itself in this succession of hope and nostalgia. — Natalia Ginzburg

I think of a writer as a river: you reflect what passes before you. — Natalia Ginzburg

But that was the best time of my life, and only now that it has gone from me forever
only now do I realize it. — Natalia Ginzburg

When I write something I usually think it is very important and that I am a very fine writer. I think this happens to everyone. But there is one corner of my mind in which I know very well what I am, which is a small, a very small writer. I swear I know it. But that doesn't matter much to me. Only, I don't want to think about names: I can see that if I am asked 'a small writer like who?' it would sadden me to think of the names of other small writers. I prefer to think that no one has ever been like me, however small, however much a mosquito or a flea of a writer I may be. The important thing is to be convinced that this really is your vocation, your profession, something you will do all your life. — Natalia Ginzburg

Someone who has seen a house collapse knows only too clearly what frail things little vases of flowers and pictures and white walls are. He knows only too well what a house is made of. — Natalia Ginzburg

Today, as never before, the fates of men are so intimately linked to one another that a disaster for one is a disaster for everybody. — Natalia Ginzburg

And we are a people without tears. The things that moved our parents do not move us at all. — Natalia Ginzburg

My tidiness, and my untidiness, are full of regret and remorse and complex feelings. — Natalia Ginzburg

Human relationships have to be rediscovered every day. We have to remember constantly that every kind of meeting with our neighbor is a human action and so it is always evil or good, true or deceitful, a kindness or a sin. — Natalia Ginzburg

We become adolescents when the words that adults exchange with one another become intelligible to us. — Natalia Ginzburg

Being moderate with oneself and generous with others; this is what is meant by having a just relationship with money, by being free as far as money is concerned. — Natalia Ginzburg

Over my real sorrows I never weep. — Natalia Ginzburg

The true defense against wealth is not a fear of wealth - of its fragility and of the vicious consequences that it can bring - the true defense against wealth is an indifference to money. — Natalia Ginzburg

England is a country where people stay exactly as they are. The soul does not receive the slightest jolt. — Natalia Ginzburg

It seemed to us that his sadness was that of a boy, the voluptuous heedless melancholy of a boy who has still not come down to earth, and moves in the arid, solitary world of dreams. — Natalia Ginzburg

Italy is a country which is willing to submit itself to the worst governments. It is, as we know, a country ruled by disorder, cynicism, incompetence and confusion. Nevertheless we are aware of intelligence circulating in the streets like a vivid bloodstream. — Natalia Ginzburg

As soon as we see our dreams betrayed we realize that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality, and we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by. — Natalia Ginzburg

Every day silence harvests its victims. Silence is a mortal illness. — Natalia Ginzburg

No adultery is bloodless. — Natalia Ginzburg

What we must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken. — Natalia Ginzburg

I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world. — Natalia Ginzburg

But the English do not know what surprise is. No one ever turns his head to look at anyone else in the street. — Natalia Ginzburg

You aren't ill: it is just that you are made of second-rate materials. — Natalia Ginzburg