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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

Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.
ELENA FERRANTE

Anonymity Concentrate Exclusive Let Writing
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

Away Carries Dragnet Everything Expression Feeling Figure Posture Speech Through Trouble Write
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

Been Behind Deal Economics Feel Great Guilt Hard Laddr Left Towards Tumbling
The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose
ELENA FERRANTE

Around Brutal Circle Empty Neck Night Noose Tighten
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

Existence Intense Joy Pain Pleasure Pulse Skin Stab Start Truth Under
I didn’t choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.
ELENA FERRANTE

Absence Anonymous Choose Instead
He was going through one of those moments that you read about in books, when a character reacts in an unexpectedly extreme way to the normal discontents of living.
ELENA FERRANTE

Book Character Discontent Extreme Going Living Moment Normal One React Read Through Unexpected Way
The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick.
ELENA FERRANTE

First Measure Need Rule Say Stick Story Tell
The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.
ELENA FERRANTE

Do Essential Knowm Play She
I no longer protect myself from the world I grew up in. Rather, today I try to protect the feelings I have for that world, the emotional space where my desire to write first took hold, and still grows.
ELENA FERRANTE

Desire Emotional Feeling Grew Longer Myself Protect Rather Space Today Up World
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

Condemned Own Reader Story Write Writer
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

Both Fragment Hate Love People Thousand Together Us
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

Answer Being Book Contain Publication Question Reason Stop Themselves Work
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

Always Attention Careful Conflict Economic Paid Social
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.
ELENA FERRANTE

Certainly During Happens Night Something
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

Absolutely Believe Book Certain Depressed Girl Good Hero Man Old Thirteen Year

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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