Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness. Italo Calvino More Quotes by Italo Calvino More Quotes From Italo Calvino If a lover is wretched who invokes kisses of which he knows not the flavor, a thousand times more wretched is he who has had a taste of the flavor and then had it denied him. Italo Calvino flavorkissingtaste Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst. Italo Calvino registerautobiographydata Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly. Italo Calvino distanceorderlying 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 shelvescrybook It is only through the confining act of writing that the immensity of the nonwritten becomes legible Italo Calvino immensitywriting Renouncing things is less difficult than people believe: it's all a matter of getting started. Once you've succeeded in dispensing with something you thought essential, you realize you can also do without something else, then without many other things. Italo Calvino essentialsbelievepeople One reads alone, even in another's presence. Italo Calvino Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have. Italo Calvino mirrorsnegativetravel 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 venicehairbelieve Today each of you is the object of the other’s reading, one reads in the other the unwritten story. Italo Calvino readingstoriestoday The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him. Italo Calvino attraction-and-repulsionconcernworld Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again. Italo Calvino writingopportunitybook The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death. Italo Calvino continuity-of-lifeinevitability-of-deathtwo You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Italo Calvino readingwinternight I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed! Italo Calvino disturbedreadingwant Now, the old man happened to be the Lord. Italo Calvino old-manlordmen ...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells. Italo Calvino smellcellsbeer Memory really matters...only if it binds together the imprint of the past and the project of the future, if it enables us to act without forgetting what we wanted to do, to become without ceasing to be, and to be without ceasing to become. Italo Calvino togethermemoriespast Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. "There is the blueprint," they say. Italo Calvino sunsetstarsfall In abortion, the person who is massacred, physically and morally, is the woman. Italo Calvino abortionpersons
