Learn Italian: «Ce ne servono altri», mormorò il redattore. - "We need more of them," the editor murmured.

In written Italian, when you quote direct speech, it is standard practice to invert the subject and verb in the reporting clause. Placing the verb first (mormorò) followed by the subject (il redattore) creates a smoother stylistic flow that you will see constantly in Italian novels and journalism.

Why is the verb servono in the plural when the English translation says "We need"?

The verb servire behaves like piacere. Rather than saying "we need X", the Italian structure is literally "X is necessary to us". Here, the subject doing the action is the plural pronoun altri (more/others). Because the subject is plural, the verb must be the plural servono.

Why does the sentence use ce ne instead of ci ne for "to us of them"?

This is a mandatory pronoun combination rule. Whenever the indirect object pronoun ci (to us) is placed right before the partitive pronoun ne (of them) or any direct object pronoun like lo, la, li, or le, the i changes to an e. Therefore, ci + ne becomes ce ne.

Why is the passato remoto (mormorò) used here instead of the passato prossimo (ha mormorato)?