" The drive to change one’s state must face countless obstacles. One can act on genetic conditioning but not ignore it. Belonging to one class or another can be camouflaged but not canceled out. The individual is in the end only a battlefield, in which privileges and disadvantages war fiercely. What counts in the end is the collective flow of generations. Even when there is both merit and luck, the efforts of a single individual are unsatisfying. "

― Elena Ferrante , La frantumaglia