“ I simply decided once and for all to liberate myself from the anxiety of notoriety and the urge to be a part of that circle of successful people, those who believe they have won who-knows-what Elena Ferrante
“ There is this presumption, in those who feel destined for art and above all literature: we act as if we had received an investiture, but in fact no one has invested us with anything, it is we who have… Elena Ferrante
“ Don't be timid. You're a writer, use your role, test it, make something of it. These are decisive times, everything is turning upside down. Participate, be present. Elena Ferrante
“ But one afternoon Lila said softly that there was nothing that could eliminate the conflict between the rich and the poor. "Why?""Those who are on the bottom always want to be on top, those who are on… Elena Ferrante
“ Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence. Elena Ferrante
“ I'm lying, yes, but why do you force me to give a linear explanation; linear explanations are almost always lies. Elena Ferrante
“ 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… Elena Ferrante
“ ...but I was bored, I could scarcely understand them. I started to borrow novels from the circulating library, and read one after the other. But in the long run they didn't help. They presented intens… Elena Ferrante
“ Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote. Elena Ferrante
“ I soon had to admit that what I did by myself couldn't excite me, only what Lila touched became important. Elena Ferrante
“ Engineering -nature is engineering, so is culture, science is right behind, only chaos is not an engineer- and, along with it, the furious need to reproduce. Elena Ferrante
“ It seemed to me - articulated in words of today - that not only did she know how to put things well but she was developing a gift that I was already familiar with: more effectively than she had as a c… Elena Ferrante
“ Up or down, it seemed to us that we were always going toward something terrible that had existed before us yet had always been waiting for us, just for us. When you haven't been in the world long, it'… Elena Ferrante
“ I felt that not only in my book but in novels in general there was something that truly agitated me, a bare and throbbing heart . . . But was that what I wanted? To write, to write with purpose, to wr… Elena Ferrante
“ For no obvious reason, I began to look closely at the women on the stradone. Suddenly it seemed to me that I had lived with a sort of limited gaze: as if my focus had been only on us girls, Ada, Gigli… Elena Ferrante
“ It was during that journey to Via Orazio that I began to be made unhappy by my own alienness. I had grown up with those boys, I considered their behavior normal, their violent language was mine. But f… Elena Ferrante
“ Only when we feel the story in each of its moments or places are we able to tell it properly. Elena Ferrante
“ Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible. Elena Ferrante
“ I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t. . . . I very much love those myst… Elena Ferrante
