Elena Ferrante Quotes

• The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick, a calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.

  Elena Ferrante

  Needs, Stories, Calendars

  Elena Ferrante (2005). “The Days of Abandonment”, p.83, Penguin

  210 Copy quote

• It's the people who love us or hate us - or both - who hold together the thousands of fragments we are made of.

  Elena Ferrante

  Hate, People, Together

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.305, Penguin

  53 Copy quote

• Competition between women is good only if it does not prevail; that is to say if it coexists with affinity, affection, with a real sense of being mutually indispensable, with sudden peaks of solidarity in spite of envy, jealousy and the whole inevitable cohort of bad feelings.

  Elena Ferrante

  Real, Envy, Feelings

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.304, Penguin

  64 Copy quote

• I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

  Elena Ferrante

  Believe, Book, Needs

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.206, Penguin

  53 Copy quote

• Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.

  Elena Ferrante

  Pain, Joy, Skins

  Elena Ferrante (2005). “The Days of Abandonment”, p.164, Penguin

  48 Copy quote

• The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose

  Elena Ferrante

  Night, Circles, Necks

  Elena Ferrante (2005). “The Days of Abandonment”, p.144, Penguin

  67 Copy quote

• I had to discover very quickly that class origins cannot be erased, regardless of whether we climb up or down the sociocultural ladder.

  Elena Ferrante

  Class, Ladders, Climbs

  Source: www.theguardian.com

  8 Copy quote

• Women, in all fields - whether mothers or not - still encounter an extraordinary number of obstacles. They have to hold too many things together and often sacrifice their aspirations in the name of affections.

  Elena Ferrante

  Mother, Sacrifice, Numbers

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.301, Penguin

  41 Copy quote

• I didn't choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.

  Elena Ferrante

  Absence, Anonymity

  41 Copy quote

• Certainly something had happened to me during the night. Or after months of tension I had arrived at the edge of some precipice and now I was falling, as in a dream slowly, even as I continued to hold the thermometer in my hand, een as I stood with the soles of my slippers on the floor, even as I felt myself solidly contained by the expectant looks of my children. It was the fault of the torture that my husband had inflicted. But enough, I had to tear the pain from memory, I had to sandpaper away the scratches that were damaging my brain.

  Elena Ferrante

  Dream, Children, Pain

  59 Copy quote

• I think our sexuality is all yet to be recounted and that the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle.

  Elena Ferrante

  Thinking, Males, Obstacles

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.304, Penguin

  38 Copy quote

• I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned.

  Elena Ferrante

  Queens, Dark, Animal

  Elena Ferrante (2005). “The Days of Abandonment”, p.64, Penguin

  26 Copy quote

• We lie in order to tolerate our existence and, most of all, we lie to ourselves.

  Elena Ferrante

  Lying, Order, Existence

  22 Copy quote

• I don't have any special passion for politics, it being a never-ending merry-go-round of bosses big and small, all generally mediocre. I actually find it boring.

  Elena Ferrante

  Passion, Boss, Special

  "Elena Ferrante: 'Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

  32 Copy quote

• There was something unbearable in the things, in the people, in the buildings, in the streets that, only if you reinvented it all, as in a game, became acceptable. The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

  Elena Ferrante

  Games, Play, People

  Elena Ferrante (2015). “The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante Boxed Set”, p.93, Penguin

  33 Copy quote

• In order not to cut out a large part of one's private life, the creative work should not swallow up every other form of self-expression. But that is the most complicated thing.

  Elena Ferrante

  Cutting, Self, Expression

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.301, Penguin

  30 Copy quote

• Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.

  Elena Ferrante

  Writing, Let Me, Anonymity

  Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

  16 Copy quote

• Writers, because they write, are condemned never to be readers of their own stories...The memory of first putting a story into words will always prevent writers from reading their work as an ordinary reader would.

  Elena Ferrante

  Memories, Reading, Writing

  24 Copy quote

• I have always paid careful attention to social and economic conflicts, to the dialectic - if we can call it that - between high and low. Maybe it's because I was not born or brought up in affluence.

  Elena Ferrante

  Affluence, Attention, Conflict

  "Elena Ferrante: 'Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

  27 Copy quote

• Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

  Elena Ferrante

  Writing, Expression, Feelings

  "Elena Ferrante: 'Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

  15 Copy quote

• Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.

  Elena Ferrante

  Examination, Moments, Pleasure

  Elena Ferrante (2013). “The Story of a New Name: Neapolitan Novels, Book Two”, p.419, Penguin

  24 Copy quote

• As a girl - twelve, thirteen years old - I was absolutely certain that a good book had to have a man as its hero, and that depressed me.

  Elena Ferrante

  Girl, Book, Hero

  "Elena Ferrante, Art of Fiction No. 228". Interview with Sandro and Sandra Ferri, elenaferrante.com. 2015.

  15 Copy quote

• My work stops at publication. If the books don't contain in themselves their reasons for being - questions and answers - it means I was wrong to have them published.

  Elena Ferrante

  Book, Mean, Questions And Answers

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.305, Penguin

  19 Copy quote

• Climbing the economic ladder has been very hard for me; I still feel a great deal of guilt towards those I left behind.

  Elena Ferrante

  Climbing, Guilt, Ladders

  "Elena Ferrante: 'Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

  15 Copy quote

• The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.

  Elena Ferrante

  Essentials, Treatment, Traps

  Elena Ferrante (2016). “Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey”, p.305, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

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