Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvinowas an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy, the Cosmicomics collection of short stories, and the novels Invisible Citiesand If on a winter's night a traveler...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth15 October 1923
CountryItaly
certain writings
For the critic, the author does not exist; only a certain number of writings exist.
mean writing hiding-something
Writing always means hiding something in such a way that it then is discovered.
writing immensity
It is only through the confining act of writing that the immensity of the nonwritten becomes legible
book writing trying
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.
writing cities people
My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language. . . . Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world--qualities that stick to the writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them.
book writing opportunity
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.
hate writing what-matters
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.
writing wells ifs
How well I would write if I were not here!
inspiration writing expression
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.
book books-and-reading breaks reading rip start storm traffic waiting wheel
You are at the wheel of your car, waiting at a traffic light, you take the book out of the bag, rip off the transparent wrapping, start reading the first lines. A storm of honking breaks over you....
critical foresee full novels ten theory
Now you mustn't think that I don't have any ideas for novels in my head. I've got ideas for ten novels in my head. But with every idea I have, I already foresee the wrong novels I would write, because I also have critical ideas in my head; I've got a full theory of the perfect novel, and that's what stumps me.
brief collected composed novelist overall structure texts various
I'm only a novelist on occasion. Many of my books are made up of brief texts collected together, short stories, or else they are books that have an overall structure but are composed of various texts.
late politics society
I think today that politics registers very late things which society manifests through other channels, and I feel that often politics distorts and mystifies reality.
certain collective convinced order solve work
I am more and more convinced that literature is made up of works, genres, schools, discussions, problems, collective work in order to solve certain problems.