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" I detest this contemporary trend to destroy the traditional hierarchy of genres. "
Italo Calvino
Destroy
Genres
Hierarchy
Related Quotes:
" Every time I've had to do journalistic investigations, I've cursed, but later I discovered that it had helped me enormously with writing fiction. It's the one thing that can save me from becoming an academic writer. "
Italo Calvino
Time
Fiction
Me
" Personally, I believe in fiction because the stories I like are those with a beginning and an end. "
Italo Calvino
Beginning
Believe
End
" I write... sonnets... and writing sonnets is boring. You have to find rhymes; you have to write hendecasyllables; so after a while, I get bored and my drawer is overflowing with unfinished short poems. "
Italo Calvino
Find
You
Writing
" What is modern art but the attempt to pinpoint vague, incorporeal, inexpressible sensations? What is modern art, I would add, but the most solemn pile of nonsense that ever appeared on Earth? "
Italo Calvino
Art
Modern Art
Modern
" The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts. "
Italo Calvino
More
Our
Walls
" Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world. "
Italo Calvino
World
My Own
Me
" I do not have any political commitments anymore. I'm politically a total agnostic; I'm one of the few writers in Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific political party. "
Italo Calvino
Political
Political Party
Party
" Bringing a child into the world makes sense only if this child is wanted consciously and freely by its two parents. If it is not, then it is simply animal and criminal behavior. "
Italo Calvino
Parents
Behavior
Animal
" Sometimes I try to concentrate on the story I would like to write, and I realize that what interests me is something else entirely, or, rather, not anything precise but everything that does not fit in what I ought to write. "
Italo Calvino
Like
Story
Try
" In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision. "
Italo Calvino
Matter
Precision
Love
" Writers divide into those who write biting their nails and those who don't. Some writers write licking their finger. "
Italo Calvino
Write
Divide
Finger
" I have never loved any writer as much as Hemingway. "
Italo Calvino
Writer
Never
Hemingway
" Man is simply the best chance we know of that matter has had of providing itself with information about itself. "
Italo Calvino
Know
Man
Best
" 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. "
Italo Calvino
Now
Think
Perfect
" Politics is marginal, but literature moves along by indirection. "
Italo Calvino
Politics
Moves
Literature
" If the reader looks, I think he will find plenty of moral and political ideas in my stories. "
Italo Calvino
Moral
Think
Political
" I don't believe chance can play a role in my literature. "
Italo Calvino
Role
Play
Literature
" The writer is someone who tears himself to pieces in order to liberate his neighbor. "
Italo Calvino
Tears
Writer
Order
" I change my method and field of reference from book to book because I can never believe in the same thing two times running. "
Italo Calvino
Two
Never
Believe
" I read Freud because I find him an excellent writer... a writer of police thrillers that can be followed with great passion. "
Italo Calvino
Him
Read
Great
" I spend 12 hours a day reading on most days of the year. "
Italo Calvino
Days
Most
Reading
" Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst. "
Italo Calvino
Things
Rather
Public
" A tale is born from an image, and the image extends and creates a network of meanings that are always equivocal. "
Italo Calvino
Always
Image
Born
" Folktales are real. "
Italo Calvino
Real
" New York is a fabled city, a fabulous city. "
Italo Calvino
New
City
Fabulous
" My stories are full of facts; they have a beginning and an end. For that reason, they will never... occupy a place in contemporary literature. "
Italo Calvino
Beginning
End
Place
" I feel so at home in New York that I don't have the urge to write about it. "
Italo Calvino
Feel
Write
I Feel
" Of course, I'm of the generation that grew up with Hemingway and Faulkner as strong influences. "
Italo Calvino
Up
Generation
Strong
" The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines. "
Italo Calvino
Race
Things
Human
" I'm a Communist, fully convinced and dedicated to my cause. "
Italo Calvino
Convinced
Dedicated
Communist