black
grey
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The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

Elena Ferrante

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 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

Queen Spade Sting Wsp
Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.
ELENA FERRANTE

Even Examination Happy Moment Pleautre Possible Rigorous Stand
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
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

Affection Affinity Between Coexist Competition Does Say Good Indispemdible Mutually Only Ral Sense Sudden Women
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
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

Cut Large Life Once Order Part Private
A calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.
ELENA FERRANTE

Between Calculate Calendar Emotion Fact Narrate Pass
I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.
ELENA FERRANTE

Author Believe Book Need No Once Written
I think our sexuality is all yet to be recounted and that the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle.
ELENA FERRANTE

Constitute Huge Male Obstacle Recount Rich Sexually Think Tradition
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
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
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
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
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
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

The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

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The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

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Popular Authors

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