Mafalda Quotes

Al final ¿cómo es el asunto? ¿uno va llevando su vida adelante, o la vida se lo lleva por delante a uno?

¿No te duele un poco decirle subdesarrollado al país? ¿y que quieres que le diga?. Un país amateur

¿No es increible todo lo que puede tener dentro un lápiz?

Nadie amasa una fortuna sin hacer harina a otros

On the train I told him about the day we thought he’d drowned and how I was determined to ask my father to round up as many fishermen as he could to go look for him, and when they found him, to light a pyre on our shore, while I grabbed Mafalda’s knife from the kitchen and ripped out his heart, because that heart and his shirt were all I’d ever have to show for my life. A heart and a shirt. His heart wrapped in a damp shirt – like Anchise’s fish.

Indudablemente, la primavera es lo más publicitario que tiene la vida.

De vez en cuando conviene sacar a pasear un poco el instinto

Los Perez son a la guía telefónica lo que los chinos a la población mundial

Oliver liked to keep the windows and shutters wide open in the afternoon, with just the swelling sheer curtains between us and life beyond, because it was a 'crime' to block away so much sunlight and keep such a landscape from view, especially when you didn't have it all life long, he said. Then the rolling fields of the valley leading up to the hills seemed to sit in a rising mist of olive green: sunflowers, grapevines, swatches of lavender, and those squat and humble olive trees stooping like gnarled, aged scarecrows gawking through our window as we lay naked on my bed, the smell of his sweat, which was the smell of my sweat, and next to me my man-woman whose man-woman I was, and all around us Mafalda's chamomile-scented laundry detergent, which was the torrid afternoon world of our house.

But I had heeded the warning, and as is said of juries who have heard inadmissible evidence before it is stricken from the record, suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more. […] I squirreled away small things so that in the lean days ahead glimmers from the past might bring back the warmth. I began, reluctantly, to steal from the present to pay off debts I knew I’d incur in the future. This, I knew, was as much a crime as closing the shutters on sunny afternoons. But I also knew that in Mafalda’s superstitious world, anticipating the worst was as sure a way of preventing it from happening. When we went on a walk one night and he told me that he’d soon be heading back home, I realized how futile my alleged foresight had been. Bombs never fall on the same spot; this one, for all my premonitions, fell exactly in my hideaway.

He was baffled to know that apricot trees existed in, of all places, our orchard. On late afternoons, when there was nothing to do in the house, Mafalda would ask him to climb a ladder with a basket and pick those fruits that were almost blushing with shame, she said. He would joke in Italian, pick one out, and ask, Is this one blushing with shame? No, she would say, this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age.

Pero también sabía que, en el mundo supersticioso de Mafalda, anticiparse a lo peor era una forma segura de prevenir que ocurriese.

I wished I were like those soldiers in films who run out of bullets and toss away their guns as though they would never again have any use for them, or like runaways in the desert who, rather than ration the water in the gourd, yield to thirst and swill away, then drop their gourd in their tracks. Instead, I squirreled away small things so that in the lean days ahead glimmers from the past might bring back the warmth. I began, reluctantly, to steal from the present to pay off debts I knew I'd incur in the future. This, I knew, was as much a crime as closing the shutters on sunny afternoons. But I also knew that in Mafalda's superstitious world, anticipating the worst was as sure a way of preventing it from happening. When we went on a walk one night and he told me that he'd soon be heading back home, I realized how futile my alleged foresight had been. Bombs never fall on the same spot; this one, for all my premonitions, fell exactly in my hideaway.

I brought the bathing suit to my face, then rubbed my face inside of it, as if I were trying to snuggle into it and lose myself inside its folds—So this is what he smells like when his body isn’t covered in suntan lotion, this is what he smells like, this is what he smells like, I kept repeating to myself, looking inside the suit for something more personal yet than his smell and then kissing every corner of it, almost wishing to find hair, anything, to lick it, to put the whole bathing suit into my mouth, and, if I could only steal it, keep it with me forever, never ever let Mafalda wash it, turn to it in the winter months at home and, on sniffing it, bring him back to life, as naked as he was with me at this very moment.

On the train I told him about the day we thought he’d drowned and how I was determined to ask my father to round up as many fishermen as he could to go look for him, and when they found him, to light a pyre on our shore, while I grabbed Mafalda’s knife from the kitchen and ripped out his heart, because that heart and his shirt were all I’d ever have to show for my life. A heart and a shirt. His heart wrapped in a damp shirt—like Anchise’s fish.

En el tren le hablé sobre el día en que pensamos que se había ahogado y cómo estaba dispuesto a pedirle a mi padre que reclutara a todos los marineros posibles para buscarle, y que cuando le encontrasen encenderíamos una pira en la orilla mientras que yo cogería un cuchillo de Mafalda para arrancarle el corazón, pues aquel corazón y aquella camisa eran todo lo que enseñaría durante toda mi vida. Un corazón y una camisa. Su corazón envuelto en una camisa húmeda, como el pez que trajo aquel día Anchise.

But the strains of the doleful song stirred such powerful nostalgia for lost loves and for things lost over the course of one's life and for lives, like my grandfather's, that had come long before mine that I was suddenly taken back to a poor, disconsolate universe of simple folk like Mafalda's ancestors, fretting and scurrying in the tiny vicoli of an old Naples whose memory I wanted to share word for word with Oliver now, as if he too, like Mafalda and Manfredi and Anchise and me, were a fellow southerner whom I'd met in a foreign port city and who'd instantly understand why the sound of this old song, like an ancient prayer for the dead in the deadest of languages, could bring tears even in those who couldn't understand a syllable.

Ma avevo colto l’avvertimento e, come una giuria che ha ascoltato una deposizione inammissibile prima che sia cancellata dal verbale, all’improvviso mi resi conto che eravamo in un tempo preso in prestito, che il tempo è sempre in prestito e che la banca che ce l’ha concesso viene a riscuotere la rata proprio quando siamo meno preparati a pagare e, anzi, ce ne servirebbe dell’altro. All’improvviso cominciai a scattargli mentalmente una serie di fotografie, raccolsi le briciole di pane che cadevano dal nostro tavolo e le misi da parte per il mio nascondiglio e, con mia vergogna, compilai elenchi: lo scoglio, la collina, il letto, il rumore del posacenere. Lo scoglio, la collina, il letto… Quanto avrei voluto essere come quei soldati nei film che finiscono i proiettili e buttano via la pistola come se non sapessero più cosa farsene, o come chi attraversa il deserto e, invece di razionare l’acqua, cede alla sete e si scola tutta la borraccia, abbandonandola vuota dietro di sé. Io, invece, accumulavo piccoli tesori che, nei giorni di magra che mi attendevano dopo i fasti del passato, avrebbero potuto ricreare quel calore. Con riluttanza, cominciai a rubacchiare dal presente per poter saldare debiti che sapevo avrei contratto in futuro. Anche questo era un crimine, ne ero ben consapevole, come chiudere le imposte nei pomeriggi assolati. Ma sapevo anche che, nel mondo superstizioso di Mafalda, immaginarsi il peggio era un modo sicuro per evitare che accadesse. Ma quando una sera andammo a fare una passeggiata e Oliver mi disse che presto sarebbe tornato a casa, mi resi conto di quanto erano state futili le mie previsioni. Le bombe non cadono mai nello stesso punto; questa, nonostante le mie premonizioni, aveva colpito proprio il mio nascondiglio.

Y como decía el papá de Mafalda, en ese momento la vida dejaba de ser como en los comerciales.

[miguelito] Qué seré grande yo cuando sea grande, no sé. Lo que sí sé es que no seré uno más del montón. Eso sé! [mafalda] Otro más que engrosa el montón de los que no quieren ser uno más del montón!