Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle, was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferentiand for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista, the basis for the film The Conformistdirected by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are Agostino, filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo, filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris; La Noia, filmed...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 November 1907
CountryItaly
I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.
I don't think it's possible to write a good novel around a negative personality.
When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.
The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is constant, but nowadays the illiterates can read and write.
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.
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.
War has become an affair of machines...and soldiers are little more than clever mechanics.
I do not foresee a time when I shall feel that I have nothing to say.
There are many reasons for keeping a diary: to make a note of facts that one considers important; to open one's heart, to give vent to one's feelings, to make confessions; from the instinct of economy which sometimes encourages a writer to make good use of even the smallest crumbs of his life, so that he may have one more book to publish; or again from vanity and self- satisfaction.
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.
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.
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.
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.