Top 74 Quotes by Italo Calvino

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

Thoughtful lightness can make frivolity seem dull and heavy.

A human being becomes human not through the casual convergence of certain biological conditions, but through an act of will and love on the part of other people.

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.

Man is simply the best chance we know of that matter has had of providing itself with information about itself.

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.

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

I'm a Communist, fully convinced and dedicated to my cause.

I would very much like to be one of those writers who have something really clear in their head to say, and throughout their life they promote this idea in their works.

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.