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 More Quotes by Italo Calvino More Quotes From Italo Calvino It is only after you have come to know the surface of things ... that you can venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface of things is inexhaustible. Italo Calvino surface venture knows The people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping...something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene. Italo Calvino stars running moving I could distinguish the shape of her bosom, her arms, her thighs, just as I remember them now, just as now, when the Moon has become that flat, remote circle, I still look for her as soon as the first sliver appears in the sky, and the more it waxes, the more clearly I imagine I can see her, her or something of her, but only her, in a hundred, a thousand different vistas, she who makes the Moon the Moon and, whenever she is full, sets the dogs to howling all night long, and me with them. Italo Calvino moon dog night You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask. Italo Calvino expression mind people 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 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 language land ...Life is nothing but trading smells. Italo Calvino trading smell life-is The sea where living creatures were at one time immersed is now enclosed within their bodies. Italo Calvino creatures body sea You'll understand when you've forgotten what you understood before Italo Calvino understood forgotten what he sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveller's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past. Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places. Italo Calvino journey lying past Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears. Italo Calvino cities dream desire When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign - a bad sign mostly for literature. But it is also a bad sign when they don't want to hear the word mentioned. Italo Calvino literature attention people There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that such a library ought to be composed half of books we have read and that have really counted for us, and half of books we propose to read and presume will come to count—leaving a section of empty shelves for surprises and occasional discoveries Italo Calvino leaving discovery book 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 cutting mistake ideas Very often the effort men put into activities that seem completely useless turns out to be extremely important in ways no one could foresee. Play has always been the mainspring of culture. Italo Calvino playing-games effort men Each sort of cheese reveals a pasture of a different green, under a different sky. Italo Calvino cooking sky food 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 literature giving mean When I'm writing a book I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try to understand what I've really done and to compare my intentions with the result. Italo Calvino writing trying book Every time I must find something to do that will look like something a little beyond my capabilities. Italo Calvino capability littles looks Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top. Italo Calvino grease floating dull
