The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins. – Italo Calvino
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. – Italo Calvino
What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration is nothing other than finding the right road empirically, following ones nose, taking shortcuts. – Italo Calvino
The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him. – Italo Calvino
I was on the point of cutting the cord that suspended me between heaven and earth… and measured with my eye the vast space that separated me from the rest of the human race… I felt myself precipitated with a velocity that was checked by the sudden unfolding of my parachute. – André-Jacques Garnerin, 1797