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 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 Calvino
When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign — a bad sign mostly for literature. But it is also a bad sign when they dont want to hear the word mentioned. – Italo Calvino
The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natural to live as a foreigner. – Italo Calvino
I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so its difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting – I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels. – Nigel Kennedy