Quotes by Italian Authors - Page 19

Once words have been said there is no way to un-say them
Federico Chini
There are days when everything I see seems to me charged with meaning: messages it would be difficult for me to communicate to others, define, translate into words, but which for this very reason appear to me decisive. They are announcements or presages that concern me and the world at once: for my part, not only the external events of my existence but also what happens inside, in the depths of me; and for the world, not some particular event but the general way of being of all things.
Italo Calvino
Languages for me have a secret venom that every so often foams up and for which there is no antidote.
Elena Ferrante
The hardest things to talk about are the ones we ourselves can't understand.
Elena Ferrante
Jacopo, while I could still read, during these past months, I read dictionaries, I studied histories of words, to understand what was happening in my body. I studied like a rabbi. Have you ever reflected that the linguistic term `metathesis' is similar to the oncological term `metastasis'? What is the metathesis? Instead of `clasp' one says `claps.' Instead of `beloved' one says `bevoled.' It's the temurah. The dictionary says that metathesis means the transposition or interchange, while metastasis indicates the change and shifting. How stupid dictionaries are! The root is the same. Either it's the verb metatithemi or the verb methistemi. Metatithemi means I interpose, I shift, I transfer, I substitute, I abrogate a law, I change a meaning. And methistemi? It's the same thing: I move, I transform, I transpose, I switch cliches, I take leave of my senses. And as we sought secret meanings beyond the letter, we all took leave of our senses. And so did my cells, obediently, dutifully. That's why I'm dying, Jacopo, and you know it.
Umberto Eco
Translation is the art of failure.
Umberto Eco
It can also be useful to politics, enabling that science to discover how much of it is no more than verbal construction, myth, literary tops. Politics, like literature, must above all know itself and distrust itself. As a final observation, I should like to add that it is impossible today for anyone to feel innocent, if in whatever we do or say we can discover a hidden motive - that of a white man, or a male, or the possessor of a certain income, or a member of a given economic system, or a sufferer from a certain neurosis - this should not induce in us either a universal sense of guilt or an attitude of universal accusation. When we become aware of our disease or of our hidden motives, we have already begun to get the better of them. What matters is the way in which we accept our motives and live through the ensuing crisis. This is the only chance we have of becoming different from the way we are - that is, the only way of starting to invent a new way of being.
Italo Calvino
The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.
Ezra Pound
I am the man who comes and goes between the bar and the telephone booth. Or, rather:that man is called 'I' and you know nothing else about him, just as this station is called only 'station' and beyond it there exists nothing except the unanswered signal of a telephone ringing in a dark room of a distant city.
Italo Calvino
Her gaze dims as her nostalgia for Palermo overcomes her. Those smells of seaweed dried by the sun, of capers, of ripe figs, she will never find them anywhere else; those burnt and scented shores, those waves slowly breaking, jasmine petals flaking in the sun.
Dacia Maraini
This is the paradox of the power of literature: it seems that only when it is persecuted does it show its true powers, challenging authority, whereas in our permissive society it feels that it is being used merely to create the occasional pleasing contrast to the general ballooning of verbiage.
Italo Calvino
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.
Ezra Pound
A classic is a book that has never finished what it wants to say.
Italo Calvino
I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.
Leonardo da Vinci
Without reserve, I can say that my entire identity is in the books I write.
Elena Ferrante
The most difficult achievement is the capacity to see oneself, to name oneself, to imagine oneself. If in daily life we use ideologies, common sense, religion, even literature itself to disguise our experiences and make them presentable, in fiction it’s possible to sweep away all the veils—in fact, perhaps, it’s a duty.
Elena Ferrante
In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single homogeneous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.
Italo Calvino
I think that my first impulse arises from a hypersensitivity or allergy. It seems to me that language is always used in a random, approximate, careless manner, and this distresses me unbearably. Please don't think that my reaction is the result of intolerance towards my neighbor: the worst discomfort of all comes from hearing myself speak. That's why I try to talk as little as possible. If I prefer writing, it is because I can revise each sentence until I reach the point where - if not exactly satisfied with my words - I am able at least to eliminate those reasons for dissatisfaction that I can put a finger on. Literature - and I mean the literature that matches up to those requirements - is the promised land in which language becomes what it really ought to be.
Italo Calvino
Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not in literature. Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement.
Italo Calvino
If the ancients had been able to see it as I see it now, Mr. Palomar thinks, they would have thought they had projected their gaze into the heaven of Plato's ideas, or in the immaterial space of the postulates of Euclid; but instead, thanks to some misdirection or other, this sight has been granted to me, who fear it is too beautiful to be true, too gratifying to my imaginary universe to belong to the real world. But perhaps it is this same distrust of our senses that prevents us from feeling comfortable in the universe. Perhaps the first rule I must impose on myself is this: stick to what I see.
Italo Calvino
Great Literature is simply language charged to the utmost with meaning
Ezra Pound
Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: "You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal
Cesare Pavese
There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that such a library ought to be composed half of books we have read and that have really counted for us, and half of books we propose to read and presume will come to count—leaving a section of empty shelves for surprises and occasional discoveries
Italo Calvino
Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.
Italo Calvino
Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?
Italo Calvino
The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.
Enrico Fermi
I raised my hand and asked if God was a spirit. And he said yes, He was. So I asked if it was right that a spirit was different from a person because it didn't have a body, wasn't material. And when he agreed, I asked how, if God was a spirit, He could be a man, if He didn't have a body or anything.
Donna Leon
But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it?
Umberto Eco
Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.
Paolo Giordano
I tell young people: Do not think of yourself, think of others. Think of the future that awaits you, think about what you can do and do not fear anything.
Rita Levi-Montalcini
When you are nearer, you will understand how much your eyesight is deceived by distance. Therefore, push yourself a little harder.
Dante Alighieri
The child is not a citizen of the future; he (sic) is a citizen from the very first moment of life and also the most important citizen because he represents and brings the 'possible'...a bearer, here and now of rights, of values, of culture...It is our hiostorical responsibility not only to affirm this but the create cultural, social, political and educational contexts which are able to receive children and dialogue with their potential for constructing human rights.
Carlina Rinaldi
It is only once we stop taking everything for granted and fully open our hearts to the beauty that surrounds us that we will understand the importance of joining our hands in the construction of a better world for the people of generations to come.
Francisco Battiti
Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes.
Italo Calvino
I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, "Mamma, can I open the light?" She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art. It was a sort of metaphor, but she was not using it as ornamentation.
Ezra Pound
I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled until I set him free.
Michelangelo
We can create transcending stories for readers and for us. Creativity is a double edge sword, which can kill the writer.
Rossana Condoleo
Of all the words that exist in any language only a bare minority are pure, unadulterated, original roots. The majority are "coined" words, forms that have been in one way or another created, augmented, cut down, combined, and recombined to convey new needed meanings, The language mint is more than a mint; it is a great manufacturing center, where all sorts of productive activities go on unceasingly.
Mario Andrew Pei
Critique by creating.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
Sophia Loren
Matteo lived inside her like a memory that paradoxically stopped the pain and which she could never get enough of... because there was, and never would be, anything that was like him. Wherever she went, whatever she did, he was the only thing she truly loved, and which she sadly no longer had.
Mirella Muffarotto
Maybe we really are made of the same clay, maybe we really are condemned, blameless, to the same, identical mediocrity.
Elena Ferrante
But how can I let him just walk away with a smile on my face and a slap on his back when every cell in my body is tied painfully to him, and I can’t breathe when I think of him being away from me?!
Mirella Muffarotto
This unrequited love business was driving him crazy. It was a feeling that took you over, mind, body, and soul. Worse than a drug that tore apart your flesh and spirit, and without which you simply could not live.
Mirella Muffarotto
Most people think that love doesn’t stand the test of time – that it is eternal only as long as it lasts – but love is an unquenchable flame. It is only the fires of momentary desire that burn too fast and go out far too quickly without leaving behind a single trace.
Mirella Muffarotto
I love everything about you. And I’ve felt that way for such a long time that it could last forever.
Mirella Muffarotto
I’ve always liked you, from the first moment I saw you at the Pigafetta Stadium.” He kept his distance because he wanted her too much. “And ever since that day, I knew that you were in love with another guy, and that he would sooner or later feel the same way I did.” Cutting ties with her was excruciatingly painful. “I just hoped that he would be stupid enough to let me have you,” he gasped. “But he wasn’t.
Mirella Muffarotto
I’ll never fully shake that sense of absolute impotence when destiny is at work. The feeling will cling to my feet forever, trying to pull me down. Even now if I mess up a pass, that malign force could be to blame. For that reason, I steer well clear of the DVD from the Liverpool game.
Andrea Pirlo
She had feared the worst, and even though at that very moment she would have liked to wring her neck, she was happy to learn that suicide was not one of the stupid things that Eve had in her repertoire. Suicide made no sense: situations change, people change, and the problems of today may find a solution tomorrow. So long as you’re in the game you can change the final score, but if you take yourself out of it, you’ll never know how it might have ended, and you let the world win.
Mirella Muffarotto
The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?
Umberto Eco
Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.
Ignazio Silone
Destiny cutsthe cake of love,Three slices to some,To others, a crumb.
Stefano Benni
There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.
Giacomo Casanova
To lead a blameless life you must curb your passions , and whatever misfortune may befall you cannot be ascribed by anyone to want of good luck, or attributed to fate; these words are devoid of sense, and all fault will rightly fall on your own head.
Giacomo Casanova
We are all, he says, the sport of destiny. Ah, but not quite. Destiny is an intelligent force, moving with purpose.
Rafael Sabatini
Never tell a mother how she has to raise her children and give no advice over their schooling, health or nutrition if you are not asked to.
Rossana Condoleo
Intrinsic values and qualities are age-free. For example, social competencies or a good heart.
Rossana Condoleo
Strategic personal qualities you can base your self-confidence on are those which are interesting for all mankind.
Rossana Condoleo
What about thinking of happiness as a right instead than as a gift?
Rossana Condoleo
Time creates Let time work at your projects.
Rossana Condoleo