Italo Calvino Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable, of what has been expelled from the land of language, removed as a result of ancient prohibitions.

  Italo Calvino

  Ocean, Land, Language

  "Cybernetics and Ghosts" (1969)

  10 Copy quote

• It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books.

  Italo Calvino

  Real, Book, Reading

  "Enter the maze" by David Mitchell, www.theguardian.com. May 22, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

• Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.

  Italo Calvino

  Sad, Taken, Melancholy

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.19, Harvard University Press

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• The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city.

  Italo Calvino

  Cat, Animal, Men

  Italo Calvino (2012). “Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City”, p.107, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  31 Copy quote

• A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Reading, Discovery

  Italo Calvino (2014). “Why Read the Classics?”, p.5, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.

  Italo Calvino

  Past, Branches

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• For the man who thought he was Man there is no salvation.

  Italo Calvino

  Men, He Man, Salvation

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• Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.

  Italo Calvino

  Country, Important, World

  6 Copy quote

• There is no language without deceit.

  Italo Calvino

  Deceit, Language

  Italo Calvino (2013). “Invisible Cities”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I will start out this evening with an assertion: fantasy is a place where it rains.

  Italo Calvino

  Rain, Evening, Fantasy

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.81, Harvard University Press

  35 Copy quote

• Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.

  Italo Calvino

  Travel, Distance, Clouds

  51 Copy quote

• Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Information, Ifs

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.124, Harvard University Press

  40 Copy quote

• ...Life is nothing but trading smells.

  Italo Calvino

  Smell, Life Is, Trading

  Italo Calvino (2012). “If on a winter's night a traveler”, p.76, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• Every time I must find something to do that will look like something a little beyond my capabilities.

  Italo Calvino

  Looks, Littles, Capability

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• To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in a place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished.

  Italo Calvino

  Opposites, Space, Duration

  5 Copy quote

• If you want to know how much darkness there is around you, you must sharpen your eyes, peering at the faint lights in the distance.

  Italo Calvino

  Distance, Eye, Light

  15 Copy quote

• Each sort of cheese reveals a pasture of a different green, under a different sky.

  Italo Calvino

  Food, Sky, Cooking

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• The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.

  Italo Calvino

  Struggle, Literature, Limits

  Italo Calvino (2017). “The Uses of Literature”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• At times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it.

  Italo Calvino

  Mirrors, Deny, Increase

  Italo Calvino (2013). “Invisible Cities”, p.62, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears.

  Italo Calvino

  Dream, Cities, Desire

  "Invisible Cities". Book by Italo Calvino, 1972.

  8 Copy quote

• The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.

  Italo Calvino

  Illusion, Obscure, Knots

  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller".

  6 Copy quote

• The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.

  Italo Calvino

  Bridges, Emergencies, Invisible

  6 Copy quote

• The soul is often in the surface, and the importance of 'depth' is overestimated.

  Italo Calvino

  Design, Soul, Depth

  6 Copy quote

• Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement. Only if poets and writers set themselves tasks that no one else dares imagine will literature continue to have a function.

  Italo Calvino

  Goal, Achievement, Tasks

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.112, Harvard University Press

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• I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.

  Italo Calvino

  Cities, People, Stories

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.3, Harvard University Press

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