The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.
Italo CalvinoYour first book already defines you, while you are really far from being defined. And this definition is something you may then carry with you for the rest of your life, trying to confirm it or extend or correct or deny it; but you can never eliminate it.
Italo Calvinoseek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space
Italo CalvinoThe city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.
Italo Calvino