Writer Quotes by Italo Calvino

I'm afraid I don't think I really have a life on which something can be written.

— Italo Calvino

Reading is a possession, a march toward a possession.

— Italo Calvino

“Since I have become a slave of writing, the pleasure of reading has ended for me.”

— Italo Calvino

I have never loved any writer as much as Hemingway.

— Italo Calvino

“A poor writer is one who names rather than represents.”

— Italo Calvino

I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!

— Italo Calvino

One reads alone, even in another's presence.

— Italo Calvino

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

— Italo Calvino

Writers divide into those who write biting their nails and those who don't. Some writers write licking their finger.

— Italo Calvino

I change my method and field of reference from book to book because I can never believe in the same thing two…

— Italo Calvino

Every morning I tell myself, 'Today has to be productive' - and then something happens that prevents me from writing.

— Italo Calvino

Good literature can be created only with something that is different from literature.

— Italo Calvino

Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them…

— Italo Calvino

Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.

— Italo Calvino

It is only through the confining act of writing that the immensity of the nonwritten becomes legible

— Italo Calvino

I am more and more convinced that literature is made up of works, genres, schools, discussions, problems, collective work in order to…

— Italo Calvino

“You cast another bewildered look at the books around you (or, rather: it was the books that looked at you, with the…

— Italo Calvino

“For years I have been coming to this library, and I explore it volume by volume, shelf by shelf, but I could…

— Italo Calvino

“Who ever said this author had an unmistakable tone? On the contrary, he is known as an author who changes greatly from…

— Italo Calvino

How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have…

— Italo Calvino

“Writing always means hiding something in such a way that it then is discovered; because the truth that can come from my…

— Italo Calvino

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…

— Italo Calvino

Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my…

— Italo Calvino

“This is the paradox of the power of literature: it seems that only when it is persecuted does it show its true…

— Italo Calvino

“All that can be done is for each of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would…

— Italo Calvino

Something must always remain that eludes us ... For power to have an object on which it can be exercised, a space…

— Italo Calvino

“No, writing has not changed me for the better at all; I have merely used up part of my restless, conscienceless youth.…

— Italo Calvino

There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that…

— Italo Calvino

My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people,…

— Italo Calvino

“Reading," he says, "is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid material object,…

— Italo Calvino

“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

“But Ludmilla is always at least one step ahead of you. “I like to know that book exists that I will still…

— Italo Calvino

“I, too, feel the need to reread the books I have already read," a third reader says, "but at every rereading I…

— Italo Calvino

“In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you…

— Italo Calvino

“How well I would write if I were not here! If between the white page and the writing of words and stories…

— Italo Calvino

“What is more natural than that a solidity, a complicity, a bond should be established between Reader and Reader, thanks to the…

— Italo Calvino

“Sections in the bookstore - Books You Haven't Read - Books You Needn't Read - Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading…

— Italo Calvino

“You fling the book on the floor, you would hurl it out of the window, even out of the closed window, through…

— Italo Calvino

“In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you…

— Italo Calvino

I spend 12 hours a day reading on most days of the year.

— Italo Calvino