Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

From Elena Ferrante's Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (the third book in the Neapolitan series):

"Become.  It was a verb that had always obsessed me, but I realized it for the first time only in that situation.  I wanted to become, even though I had never known what.  And I had become, that was certain, but without an object, without a real passion, without a determined ambition.  I had wanted to become something - here was the point - only because I was afraid that [my friend] would become someone and I would stay behind.  My becoming was a becoming in her wake.  I had to start again to become, but for myself, as an adult, outside of her." 

Also, I love this description:  "There is no woman like you, you throw yourself into life with a force that, if we all had it, the world would have changed a long time ago."