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.

The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick, a calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as Coleridge called it.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

Women, in all fields - whether mothers or not - still encounter an extraordinary number of obstacles. They have to hold too many things together and often sacrifice their aspirations in the name of affections.

I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

Elena Ferrante is the author of several novels. There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself - perhaps even too much - in her own writing, the place where her creative life transpires in absolute fullness.