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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

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
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
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
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
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
The fictional treatment of biographical material – a treatment that for me is essential – is full of traps.
ELENA FERRANTE

Biological Fiction Material Treatment
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
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
Those who write need that “willing suspension of disbelief “, as Coleridge called it.
ELENA FERRANTE

Call Country Disbelief Need Person Suspension Willing 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
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
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
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

Brain Children Contain Damage Fault Husband Memory Scrachees
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 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
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
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
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 Climb Down Erase Had Ladder Origin Regardless Sicoverm Quickly Sociocultural
At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.
ELENA FERRANTE

Answer Discover Disturb Find Most Nay Pleasure Question Recently Something Write Written
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
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
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
We lie in order to tolerate our existence and, most of all, we lie to ourselves.
ELENA FERRANTE

Existence Lie Most Order Ourselves Tolerate
I didn’t choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.
ELENA FERRANTE

Absence Anonymous Choose Instead
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

Being Big Boss Ending never Passion Politics Small Special
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 believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.
ELENA FERRANTE

Author Believe Book Need No Once Written

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.

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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.

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