We lie in order to tolerate our existence and, most of all, we lie to ourselves.

- Elena Ferrante

Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.

- Elena Ferrante

The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.

- 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 prev…

- Elena Ferrante

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

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

- Elena Ferrante

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 fin…

- Elena Ferrante

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

- 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