The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
At times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The perception of value can change depending on the context or perspective.
This quote by Italo Calvino suggests that our understanding of value is subjective and can fluctuate based on various factors. Sometimes, external reflections, like a mirror, can enhance the perceived worth of something, while at other times, it may diminish it. This highlights the complex nature of human perception and how it shapes our judgments and evaluations of both objects and situations.
Themes
ValuePerceptionSubjectivityContextReflection
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on art appreciation, one might use this quote to discuss how the value of artwork can change with different perspectives.
More from Italo Calvino
All quotes →Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again.
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...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells.
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Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
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The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.
Italo CalvinoRead
Fantasy is like jam. . . . You have to spread it on a solid piece of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing . . . out of which you can’t make anything.
Italo CalvinoRead
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