Elena Ferrante

Italy

Writer

Quotes

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Men, dazed by pleasure, absent-mindedly sow their seed. Overcome by their orgasm, they fertilize us. They show up inside us and withdraw, leaving, concealed in our flesh, their ghost, like a lost object.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
In what disorder we lived, how many fragments of ourselves were scattered, as if to live were to explode into splinters.

The Story of the Lost Child
Reading and writing are closed-room activities, which literally take you away from the gaze of others. The greater risk is that they also remove others from your gaze.

Fragments
Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.

The Story of a New Name
Adults, waiting for tomorrow, move in a present behind which is yesterday or the day before yesterday or at most last week: they don't want to think about the rest. Children don�t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.

My Brilliant Friend
Things without meaning are the most beautiful ones.

The Story of a New Name
Each of us narrates our life as it suits us.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
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.

The Days of Abandonment
The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.

The Days of Abandonment
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays