Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be. — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading. — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“You're the absolute protagonist of this book, very well; but do you believe that gives you the right to have carnal relations… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“Now she is inviting you to a seminar at the university, where books are analyzed according to all Codes, Conscious and Unconscious,… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
I change my method and field of reference from book to book because I can never believe in the same thing two… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
The Classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combination of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“1 )Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
The book I'm looking for,' says the blurred figure, who holds out a volume similar to yours, 'is the one that gives… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“You cast another bewildered look at the books around you (or, rather: it was the books that looked at you, with the… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
You have with you the book you were reading in the cafe, which you are eager to continue, so that you can… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“How is it possible to defeat not the authors but the functions of the author, the idea that behind each book there… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“You turn the book over in your hands, you scan the sentences on the back of the jacket, generic phrases that don't… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“Don't be amazed if you see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“I, too, feel the need to reread the books I have already read," a third reader says, "but at every rereading I… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“Why not admit that my dissatisfaction reveals an excessive ambition, perhaps a megalomaniac delirium? For the writer who wants to annul himself… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“How can you keep up with her, this woman who is always reading another book besides the one before her eyes, a… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“The book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and cannot exist… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
When I'm writing a book, I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“It’s not that you expect anything in particular from this particular book. You’re the sort of person who, on principle, no longer… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
What about books? Well, precisely because you have denied it in every other field, you believe you may still grant yourself legitimately… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Your first book already defines you, while you are really far from being defined. And this definition is something you may then… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“Instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
You're the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Your house, being the place in which you read, can tell us the position books occupy in your life, if they are… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“(one would say yes, if not every day, at least fairly regularly), whether only for yourself or also for others (often only for yourself,… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“The Great Khan tried to concentrate on the game: but now it was the game’s reason that eluded him. The end of every game… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“Or else you can say, like the camel driver who took me there: "I arrived here in my first youth, one morning, many people… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“The naked man had lost hope now; he would never be able to return to the earth's surface;he would never leave the bottom of… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“The art of writing tales consists in an ability to draw the rest of life from the little one has understood of it; but… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“I ask you to come down to earth," said the Baron in a calm, rather faint voice, "and to take up the duties of… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable, of what has been expelled from the land of language, removed as a result of ancient… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“... KUBLAI: We have proved that if we were here, we would not be. POLO: And here, in fact, we are.” — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“Ludmilla, now you are being read. Your body is being subjected to a systematic reading, through channels of tactile information, visual, olfactory, and not… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“Once the process of falsification is set in motion, it won't stop. We're in a country where everything that can be falsified has been… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“Your case gives me new hope," I said to him. "With me, more and more often I happen to pick up a novel that… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
We could say, then, that man is an instrument the world employs to renew its own image constantly. — Italo Calvino Copy Share
“Perhaps it is this story that is a bridge over the void, and as it advances it flings forward news and sensations and emotions… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
Yet, even now, ever time (often) that I find that I don't understand something, then instinctively, I'm filled with the hope that perhaps this… — Italo Calvino Copy Share
