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Elena Ferrante Quotes

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

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...

Tags: authority, authorship, destiny fulfilled, 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

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.

Tags: catalyst, change, engagement, social activism, writers, writing, writing life

About Author
Elena Ferrante (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɛːlena ferˈrante]) is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into many languages. Her four-book series of Neapolitan Novels are her most widely known works.
Time magazine called Ferrante one of the 100 most influential people in 2016.

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

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...

Tags: despair, divorce, elena ferrante, love, pain, the days of abandonment

...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

...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...

Tags: elena ferrante, imagination, novels, reading

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

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.

Tags: chaos, nature

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

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...

Tags: capitalism, classes, communism, society

Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote.

Elena Ferrante

Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote.

Tags: language, poison, words, writing

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

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

Tags: anonymity, culture, privacy, writing

Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence.

Elena Ferrante

Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence.

Tags: composure, determination, fragile

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

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...

Tags: creation, friendship, love, writing

Without reserve, I can say that my entire identity is in the books I write.

Elena Ferrante

Without reserve, I can say that my entire identity is in the books I write.

Tags: literature, privacy

I soon had to admit that what I did by myself couldn't excite me, only what Lila touched became important.

Elena Ferrante

I soon had to admit that what I did by myself couldn't excite me, only what Lila touched became important.

Tags: excitement, friends, inspiration

I'm lying, yes, but why do you force me to give a linear explanation; linear explanations are almost always lies.

Elena Ferrante

I'm lying, yes, but why do you force me to give a linear explanation; linear explanations are almost always lies.

Tags: lies, narrative, truth

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

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'...

Tags: childhood

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

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...

Tags: writing life

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

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...