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Italo Calvino Quotes

Browse 17 quotes about Italo Calvino.

Italo Calvino Quotes

“Η κόλαση των ζωντανών δεν είναι κάτι που αφορά το μέλλον. Αν υπάρχει μια κόλαση είναι αυτή που υπάρχει ήδη εδώ, η κόλαση που κατοικούμε καθημερινά, που διαμορφώνουμε με τη συμβίωσή μας. Δυο τρόποι υπάρχουν για να μην υποφέρουμε. Ο πρώτος είναι για πολλούς εύκολος: να αποδεχθούν την κόλαση και να γίνουν τμήμα της μέχρι να μην βλέπουν πια. Ο δεύτερος είναι επικίνδυνος και απαιτεί συνεχή προσοχή και διάθεση για μάθηση: να προσπαθήσουμε να μάθουμε και να αναγνωρίσουμε ποιος και τι, μέσα στην κόλαση, δεν είναι κόλαση, και να του δώσουμε διάρκεια, να του δώσουμε χώρο”

“And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, "Darling, let me dip into it," to a young servant-maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at having painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow in the illumination of that page in the volume where the philosopher says: "Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence.”

“When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.”

“Benim Marco Polo'mun kalbinde yatan, insanları kentlerde yaşatan gizli nedenleri, krizlerin ötesinde değerleri olan nedenleri keşfetmek. Kentler birçok şeyin bir araya gelmesidir: Anıların, arzuların, bir dilin işaretlerinin. Kentler takas yerleridir, tıpkı bütün ekonomi tarihi kitaplarında anlatıldığı gibi, ama bu değiş-tokuşlar yalnızca ticari takaslar değil; kelime, arzu ve anı değiş-tokuşlarıdır. Kitabım, mutsuz kentlerin içine gizlenmiş, sürekli biçim alıp, yitip giden mutlu kentler imgesi üzerine açılıp kapanıyor.”

“I rumori della città che le notti d'estate entrano dalle finestre aperte nelle stanze di chi non può dormire per il caldo, i rumori veri della città notturna, si fanno udire quando a una cert'ora l'anonimo frastuono dei motori dirada e tace, e dal silenzio vengon fuori discreti, nitidi, graduati secondo la distanza, un passo di nottambulo, il fruscio della bici d'una guardia notturna, uno smorzato lontano schiamazzo, ed un russare dai piani di sopra, il gemito d'un malato, un vecchio pendolo che continua ogni ora a battere le ore.”

“Ludmilla, now you are being read. Your body is being subjected to a systematic reading, through channels of tactile information, visual, olfactory, and not without some intervention of the taste buds. Hearing also has its role, alert to your gasps and your trills. It is not only the body that is, in you, the object of raeding: the body matters insofar as it is part of a complex of elaborate elements, not all visible and not all present, but manifested in visible and present events: the clouding of your eyes, your laughing, the words you speak, your way of gathering and spreading your hair, your initiatives and your reticences, and all the signs that are on the frontier between you and usage and habits and memory and prehistory and fashion, all codes, all the poor alphabets by which one human being believes at certain moments that he is reading another human being.”

“Du hast offenbar die Gewohnheit, mehrere Bücher gleichzeitig zu lesen, dir für die verschiedenen Stunden des Tages verschiedene Lektüren zu wählen. Auch für die verschiedenen Ecken deiner immerhin doch recht kleinen Wohnung: Es gibt Bücher für deinen Nachtisch, andere finden ihren Platz neben dem Sessel, in der Küche oder im Bad. Dies könnte ein wichtiger Zug sein zur Ergänzung deines Porträts: Dein Geist hat innere Wände, mit denen du verschiedene Zeiten voneinander abtrennen kannst, um darin je nachdem innezuhalten oder vorwärtszustürmen und dich abwechselnd auf verschiedene Kanäle zu konzentrieren. Genügt das bereits, um sagen zu können, daß du gern mehrere Leben gleichzeitig leben würdest? Oder sie gar schon lebst? Daß du dein Leben mit einer Person oder in einer bestimmten Umgebung abtrennst von deinem Leben mit anderen oder woanders? Daß du bei jeder neuen Erfahrung von vornherein eine Enttäuschung mit einkalkulierst, die nicht kompensiert werden kann, es sei denn durch die Summe aller Enttäuschungen?”

“Başını kaldırırsan, bir aydınlık göreceksin. Başının üzerinde, doğmakta olan gün, göğü aydınlatıyor: Yüzüne esen, yaprakları kımıldatan rüzgârdır. Yeniden dışarıdasın, köpekler havlıyor, kuşlar uyanıyor, renkler yeryüzüne dönüyor, şeyler yeniden uzayı dolduruyor, canlı varlıklar gene yaşam işaretleri veriyorlar. Hiç kuşkusuz, sen de varsın, burada ortada, dört bir yandan yükselen gürültüler kaynaşması içinde, hareketin uğultusu içinde, pistonların vuruşu içinde, çarkların gıcırtısı içinde. Bir yerlerden, toprağın bir kıvrımından şehir uyanıyor, giderek artan çarpma, vurma, gıcırdama sesleriyle. Artık bir gümbürtü, bir uğultu, bir gürleme bütün boşluğu kaplıyor, bütün seslenmeleri, iç çekişleri, hıçkırıkları içinde eritiyor...”