In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing

by Elena Ferrante

when I write by hand I feel the threat of the vertical red line even though I haven’t used paper like that for years.

The struggle is due to the fact that the present—the entire present, even that of the “I” who writes, letter by letter—can’t maintain with clarity the thought-vision, which always comes before, is always the past, and therefore tends to be blotted out.

I felt that someone was telling me what should be written and how. At times he was male but invisible.

there was a residual stumbling block: the impression that my woman’s brain held me back, limited me, like a congenital slowness. Not only was writing difficult in itself but I was a girl and so would never be able to write books like those of the great writers.

I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do the opposite.