Italo Calvino Quotes - Page 6

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• The contradiction [trying to use Russian model to reshape Italy] grew to such an extent that I felt totally cut off from the communist world and, in the end, from politics. That was fortunate. The idea of putting literature in second place, after politics, is an enormous mistake, because politics almost never achieves its ideals.

  Italo Calvino

  Mistake, Cutting, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• The things that the novel does not say are necessarily more numerous than those it does say and only a special halo around what is written can give the illusion that you are reading also what is not written.

  Italo Calvino

  Reading, Giving, Special

  Italo Calvino (2010). “If On A Winter's Night A Traveller”, p.203, Random House

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• There is still one of which you never speak.' Marco Polo bowed his head. 'Venice,' the Khan said. Marco smiled. 'What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?' The emperor did not turn a hair. 'And yet I have never heard you mention that name.' And Polo said: 'Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.

  Italo Calvino

  Believe, Venice, Hair

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• You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice -- they won't hear you otherwise -- "I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything: just hope they'll leave you alone.

  Italo Calvino

  Reading, Winter, Night

  Italo Calvino (2010). “If On A Winter's Night A Traveller”, p.3, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• Having exhausted every possibility at the moment when he was coming full circle, Antonino realised that photographing photographs was the only course that he had left - or, rather, the true course he had obscurely been seeking all this time. (Last line of the story The Adventure of a Photographer )

  Italo Calvino

  Adventure, Circles, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• You have with you the book you were reading in the cafe, which you are eager to continue, so that you can then hand it on to her, to communicate again with her through the channel dug by others' words, which, as they are uttered by an alien voice, by the voice of that silent nobody made of ink and typographical spacing, can become yours and hers, a language, a code between the two of you, a means to exchange signals and recognize each other.

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Reading, Mean

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• The best introduction to the psychological world of one of the most important and gifted writers of our time.

  Italo Calvino

  Gifted Writers, Important, World

  6 Copy quote

• What about books? Well, precisely because you have denied it in every other field, you believe you may still grant yourself legitimately this youthful pleasure of expectation in a carefully circumscribed area like the field of books, where you can be lucky or unlucky, but the risk of disappointment isn't serious.

  Italo Calvino

  Disappointment, Believe, Book

  Italo Calvino (2010). “If On A Winter's Night A Traveller”, p.4, Random House

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• I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!

  Italo Calvino

  Reading, Want, Disturbed

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• Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Philosophical, Reading

  Italo Calvino (2012). “If on a winter's night a traveler”, p.84, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Now, the old man happened to be the Lord.

  Italo Calvino

  Men, Lord, Old Man

  Italo Calvino (2013). “Italian Folktales”, p.93, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.

  Italo Calvino

  Reading, Winter, Night

  Italo Calvino (2010). “If On A Winter's Night A Traveller”, p.3, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• My confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can give us, by means specific to it.

  Italo Calvino

  Mean, Giving, Literature

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.1, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond.

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Cry, Shelves

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• Why come to Trude? I asked myself. And I already wanted to leave. You cand resume your flight whereever you like," they say to me, "but you will arive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail. The world is covered by a sole Trude which does not begin and does not end. Only the names of the airport changes.

  Italo Calvino

  Airports, Names, Details

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• So you begin to wonder if Leonia's true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity.

  Italo Calvino

  Passion, Joy, Different

  Italo Calvino (2013). “Invisible Cities”, p.122, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I do not have any political commitments anymore. I'm politically a total agnostic; I'm one of the few writers in Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific political party.

  Italo Calvino

  Party, Commitment, Political

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• A writer's work has to take account of many rhythms: Vulcan's and Mercury's, a message of urgency obtained by dint of patient and meticulous adjustments and an intuition so instantaneous that, when formulated, it acquires the finality of something that could never have been otherwise. But it is also the rhythm of time that passes with no other aim than to let feelings and thoughts settle down, mature, and shed all impatience or ephemeral contingency.

  Italo Calvino

  Feelings, Intuition, Ephemeral

  Italo Calvino (1988). “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, p.54, Harvard University Press

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• Though I leave the house as little as possible, I have the impression that someone is disturbing my papers. More than once I have discovered that some pages were missing from my manuscripts. A few days afterward I would find the pages in their place again. But often I no longer recognize my manuscripts, as if I had forgotten what I had written, or as if overnight I were so changed that no longer recognized myself in the self of yesterday.

  Italo Calvino

  Yesterday, Self, House

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• Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top.

  Italo Calvino

  Grease, Floating, Dull

  Italo Calvino (2017). “The Uses of Literature”, p.199, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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