...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 CalvinoElsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.
Italo CalvinoA classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.
Italo Calvino