What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library? Italo Calvino More Quotes by Italo Calvino More Quotes From Italo Calvino You're the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from books, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst. Italo Calvino journey book people Whether there is such a thing as Reality, of which the various levels are only partial aspects, or whether there are only levels, is something that literature cannot decide. Literature recognizes rather the *reality of the levels.* Italo Calvino levels literature reality Arriving at each new city, the traveler 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 motivational lying travel Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened outside the book. Italo Calvino statistics lines book 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 important country world To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being... what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it. Italo Calvino what-matters hate writing It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence. Italo Calvino light morning night Novelists tell that piece of truth hidden at the bottom of every lie. Italo Calvino novelists pieces lying A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading. Italo Calvino reading discovery book Falsehood is never in words; it is in things. Italo Calvino falsehood honesty Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my readings...if you need little to set the imagination going, I require even less: the promise of reading is enough. Italo Calvino reading imagination book Success consists in felicity of verbal expression, which every so often may result from a quick flash of inspiration but as a rule involves a patient search... for the sentence in which every word is unalterable. Italo Calvino inspiration expression writing 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 duration space opposites In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision. Italo Calvino pleasure matter love 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 knots illusion obscure Memories images, once they are fixed in words, are erased. Italo Calvino fixed memories Each new Clarice, compact as a living body with its smells and its breath, shows off, like a gem, what remains of the ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead. Italo Calvino smell cairo body Something must always remain that eludes us ... For power to have an object on which it can be exercised, a space in which to stretch out its arms ... As long as I know there exists in the world someone who does tricks only for the love of the trick, as long as I know there is a woman who loves reading for reading's sake, I can convince myself that the world continues ... And every evening I, too, abandon myself to reading, like that distant unknown woman. Italo Calvino elude-us space reading Knowledge of the world means dissolving the solidity of the world. Italo Calvino dissolving mean world In general confusion youth recognizes itself and rejoices. Italo Calvino rejoice youth confusion
