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" 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

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Writing

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" For the critic, the author does not exist; only a certain number of writings exist. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I write by hand, making many, many corrections. I would say I cross out more than I write. I have to hunt for words when I speak, and I have the same difficulty when writing. "

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

" Of course, I'm of the generation that grew up with Hemingway and Faulkner as strong influences. "

Italo Calvino

Generation

Strong

" How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan. "

" The writer is someone who tears himself to pieces in order to liberate his neighbor. "

" Reading is a possession, a march toward a possession. "

" I have spent more time with other people's books than with my own. I do not regret it. "

Italo Calvino

Time

Own

" Every day I tell myself that reading newspapers is a waste of time, but then... I cannot do without them. They are like a drug. "

" I do not understand how you can associate abortion with an idea of hedonism or the good life. "

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

" New York is a fabled city, a fabulous city. "

" A quarter of America is a dramatic, tense, violent country, exploding with contradictions, full of brutal, physiological vitality, and that is the America that I have really loved and love. But a good half of it is a country of boredom, emptiness, monotony, brainless production, and brainless consumption, and this is the American inferno. "

" 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. "

" Rarely does an interviewer ask questions you did not expect. I have given a lot of interviews, and I have concluded that the questions always look alike. I could always give the same answers. "

" 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. "

" I detest this contemporary trend to destroy the traditional hierarchy of genres. "

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

" Thoughtful lightness can make frivolity seem dull and heavy. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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

" 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

Story

Try

" 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. "

" I'm terrified of writing at night, for then I can't sleep. So I start slowly, slowly writing in the morning and go on into the late afternoon. "

" Nature in America does not arouse powerful emotions in me. "

Italo Calvino

Emotions

Nature

" I don't believe chance can play a role in my literature. "