550 Quotes by Italo Calvino

seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space

A gentleman, my Lord Father, is such whether he is on earth or on the treetops

I had fallen in love. What I mean is: I had begun to recognize, to isolate the signs of one of those from the others, in fact I waited for these signs I had begun to recognize, I sought them, responded to those signs I awaited with other signs I made myself, or rather it was I who aroused them, these signs from her, which I answered with other signs of my own . . .

...an archer, the moment he thinks he's experienced, is lost; every lion we encounter in our brief life is different from every other lion; woe to us if we stop to make comparisons, to deduce our movements from norms and premises.

To open the gate for me there was a gravedigger I had already met at the Star of The Sweden."I am looking for Mr. Kauderer," I said to him.He answered, " Mr. Kauderer is not here. But since the cemetery is the home of those who are not here, come in.

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

In the midst of a thick forest, there was a castle that gave shelter to all travelers overtaken by night on their journey: lords and ladies, royalty and their retinue, humble wayfarers.

Llega un momento de la vida en que de la gente que uno ha conocido son más los muertos que vivos. Y la mente se niega a aceptar otras fisonomías, otras expresiones: en todas las caras nuevas que encuentra, imprime los viejos moldes, para cada una encuentra una máscara que se le adapta mejor.

At times I feel your voice is reaching me from far away, while I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, when all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume. And I hear, from your voice, the invisible reasons which make cities live, through which perhaps, once dead, they will come to life again.