Elena Ferrante

"Giovanna's pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape"--

The Lying Life of Adults

Anna Zainab

Kwan Ann Tan

“You can turn ugly because of worries—Angela and Ida had said—and if the worries go away you can be pretty again.” 

“How wonderful to travel, how wonderful to know someone who knows everything, whose intelligence and looks and kindness are extraordinary, and who explains to you the value of what by yourself you wouldn’t be able to appreciate.” 

Amalie Elisabeth

I could no longer be innocent, bebind my thoughts there were other thoughts, childhood was over.

“I feel ugly, like I'm a bad person, and yet I'd like to be loved.”

The Lying Life of Adults quotes

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