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
How well I would write if I were not here!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the paradox of creativity and presence.
Italo Calvino's quote suggests that the act of creation can often be hindered by the realities of one's circumstances. The longing for ideal conditions for writing highlights the struggle between the desire to express oneself and the distractions or limitations imposed by one's current situation.
Themes
WritingCreativityImaginationPresenceExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop to inspire participants.
More from Italo Calvino
All quotes βYour 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.
Italo CalvinoRead
...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.
Italo CalvinoRead
Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
Italo CalvinoRead
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 canβt make anything.
Italo CalvinoRead
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A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.
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I think that in an increasingly virtual world, lovingly produced artefacts are at a premium.
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If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.
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