Elena Ferrante Quotes

To write, you have to want something to survive you. I don’t even have the desire to live, I’ve never had it strongly the way you have. If I could eliminate myself now, while we’re speaking, I’d be more than happy. Imagine if I’m going to start writing.

Elena Ferrante

• Desire
• Imagine
• Survive
• Eliminate

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Quotes to Explore

• I can't conceive of cooking in a sunny place like Florida because my motivation comes from the changing seasons. That's why I decided to live in New York.

  

  Daniel Boulud
  • Live
  • Why
  • Cooking

• I love the Web, but the basis of my work is going through the physical books. When you go to the library, you see other books around on the shelves that you never knew existed. You can flip through a book and see the whole outline of it.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Work
  • Book
  • Library

• I tell people all the time, 'Don't give up.' We get almost to our blessing, whether you believe spiritually in God or in a good force and an evil force. We get almost to our blessing, and we quit. Don't stop.

  

  Sam Childers
  • People
  • Up
  • Time

• I really love having conversations and deconstructing things. I don't mind not having a laugh every second. Sometimes things deserve a little more discussion, and then you can have some fun after that.

  

  Larry Wilmore
  • Mind
  • Fun
  • Things

• I love doing the dishes... not for the act of cleaning but because I get to put my headphones in, listen to music, and ignore the world for an hour, and it's totally acceptable because I'm cleaning.

  

  Garrett Clayton
  • World
  • Music
  • Love

• I learn my songs by ear.

  

  Kate Smith
  • Learn
  • Songs
  • Ear

• It's really hard to get a coffee with someone. I have to call my agent, my agent calls their agent, their agent calls their manager, the manager calls back, the actor sends someone to the manager... then you get, 'Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have dinner at six,' and all I wanted was coffee! It can take, like, six days to get coffee.

  

  Daniel Espinosa
  • Actor
  • Hard
  • Coffee

• You have to open up on stage.

  

  Karen O
  • Up
  • You
  • Stage

• Frankie Muniz is amazing at everything he does. Many people don't know that he can play the piano like you wouldn't believe, and he can bowl and play basketball like you wouldn't believe.

  

  Samaire Armstrong
  • People
  • Believe
  • Amazing

• It is hard to look the other way when a dictator is being so cruel and violent with his own people.

  

  Tammy Baldwin
  • People
  • Look
  • Own

• There's more to life than football, right?

  

  Fabrice Muamba
  • Life
  • Football
  • More

• Human nature is not simple and any classification that roughly divides men into good and bad, superior and inferior, slave and free, is and must be ludicrously untrue and universally dangerous as a permanent exhaustive classification.

  

  W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Good
  • Men
  • Bad

• 'Thank you power' is writing down the moments that are good in your life so that you can go back and reflect on them - so you've got this sort of repository of good stuff in your past.

  

  Deborah Norville
  • Life
  • Good
  • Writing

• A city whose living immediacy is so urgent that when I am in it I lose all sense of the past.

  

  Kenneth Tynan
  • Past
  • City

• But human nature dictates that there will always be cheaters. That's inevitable. Where there's money involved and glory, there are going to be people that cheat, and there will always be ways to cheat.

  

  David Millar
  • People
  • Money
  • Nature

• It's simply incorrect to call Dr. King a Republican.

  

  David Garrow
  • King

• I'm a composer, and therefore I know when I've written a good tune. When you've written a good song is when you know that the lyric is completely coalesced with the song.

  

  Andrew Lloyd Webber
  • Good
  • Song
  • Lyric

• I am not going to condemn anybody. That's where religion gets a bad name, when people get holier than thou. We are all human. If my children make a mistake, I want them to know it is all right and they should try harder next time.

  

  Donny Osmond
  • People
  • Time
  • Children

• Up until about 12 years ago we never, ever, wore flak jacket or helmets but now the nastiness has got worse.

  

  Kate Adie
  • Up
  • Never
  • Years

• Many mothers and daughters are as close as any two people can be, but closeness always carries with it the need - indeed, the desire - to consider how your actions will affect the other person, and this can make you feel that you are no longer in control of your own life.

  

  Deborah Tannen
  • People
  • Life
  • Control

• Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of "speculation"; but which ought to be called Gambling.

  

  William Cobbett
  • Desire
  • Evil
  • Poor

• To a professional critic theatre-going is the curse of Adam. The play is the evil he is paid to endure in the sweat of his brow; and the sooner it is over, the better.

  

  George Bernard Shaw
  • Theatre
  • Curse
  • Critic

• To write, you have to want something to survive you. I don’t even have the desire to live, I’ve never had it strongly the way you have. If I could eliminate myself now, while we’re speaking, I’d be more than happy. Imagine if I’m going to start writing.

  

  Elena Ferrante
  • Desire
  • Imagine
  • Survive