Italo Calvino Quotes

A collection of quotes by Italo Calvino.

Italo Calvino was an acclaimed Italian writer, born on October 15, 1923, in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba. Calvino's family soon returned to Italy after his birth, where he was raised in San Remo, a town on the Italian Riviera. He began his studies at the University of Turin, but his studies were interrupted by World War II, during which he joined the Italian Resistance against the Fascist regime.

After the war, Calvino resumed his studies and earned a degree in literature. He began his writing career by working for the Communist newspaper, L'UnitÃ . Eventually, he became known for his unique literary style, blending various genres and experimenting with storytelling techniques. His fictional works often incorporated elements of fantasy and imagination, while also addressing political and social issues.

Calvino's notable works include "Invisible Cities," "If on a winter's night a traveler," and "The Baron in the Trees." His writing often examined themes of identity, perception, and the nature of literature itself. He played an influential role in the development of the Italian literary movement known as Neoavanguardia.

Italo Calvino's literary achievements brought him international recognition, and he received numerous awards throughout his career. He passed away on September 19, 1985, in Siena, Italy, leaving behind a significant legacy as one of the most innovative and celebrated Italian writers of the 20th century.

Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.

Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.

Truth Honesty Falsehood

what matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmo

what matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmonious figure, but the centrifugal force produced by it -- a plurality of language as a guarantee of a truth that is not merely partial.

Truth Authenticity Collaboration

What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most i

What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space.

The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better

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.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it h

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registe

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.

When politicians and politically minded people pay too much

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.

In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost

In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision.

The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape f

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.

Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the

Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get there. Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words.

Mythology Myths

Everything can change, but not the language that we carry in

Everything can change, but not the language that we carry inside us, like a world more exclusive and final than one's mother's womb.

The human race is a zone of living things that should be def

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all fo

I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume.

Modern Modernism

The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natura

The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natural to live as a foreigner.

What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspira

What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration is nothing other than finding the right road empirically, following one's nose, taking shortcuts.

It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random senti

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

Authors & Writing

The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has fou

The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.

The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable, of what has b

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.

Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city

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.