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The Ratio Of Literacy To Illiteracy Is Constant, But Nowadays The Illiterates Can Read And Write.

-Alberto Moravia

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The Ratio Of Literacy

Alberto Moravia

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The Ratio Of Literacy To Illiteracy Is Constant, But Nowadays The Illiterates Can Read And Write.

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Modern Man-whether In The Womb Of The Masses, Or With His Workmates, Or With His Family, Or Alone-can Never For One Moment Forget That He Is Living In A World In Which He Is A Means And Whose End Is Not His Business.

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The Less One Notices Happiness, The Greater It Is.

You Can't Think On Purpose About Somebody Or Something. Either You Think About Them Naturally Or You Don't Think At All.

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.

This Thought Strengthened In Me My Belief That All Men, Without Exception, Deserve To Be Pitied, If Only Because They Are Alive.

The Novel As We Knew It In The Nineteenth Century Was Killed Off By Proust And Joyce.

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Because The World To-day Is So Constructed That No One Can Do What He Would Like To Do, And He Is Forced, Instead, To Do What Others Wish Him To Do. Because The Question Of Money Always Intrudes—into What We Do, Into What We Are, Into What We Wish To Become, Into Our Work, Into Our Highest Aspirations, Even Into Our Relations With The People We Love!

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Loyalty, Signor Molteni, Not Love. Penelope Is Loyal To Ulysses But We Do Not Know How Far She Loved Him...and As You Know People Can Sometimes Be Absolutely Loyal Without Loving. In Certain Cases, In Fact, Loyalty Is Form Of Vengeance, Of Black-mail, Of Recovering One's Self-respect. Loyalty, Not Love.

I Do Not Foresee A Time When I Shall Feel That I Have Nothing To Say.

The Ratio Of Literacy To Illiteracy Is Constant, But Nowadays The Illiterates Can Read And Write.

Dictatorships Are One-way Streets. Democracy Boasts Two-way Traffic.

Democracies Have

An Uncertain Evil Causes Anxiety Because, At The Bottom Of One's Heart, One Goes On Hoping Till The Last Moment That It May Not Be True; A Certain Evil, On The Other Hand, Instills, For A Time, A Kind Of Dreary Tranquillity.

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