Italo Calvino Quotes

I developed a prejudice in high school that it was all going to be boring. That kind of teenage, why-do-I-have-to-read-these-goddamn-classics feeling. And then you discover that the classics are classics because they're lively. They don't stick around because they're boring. If they're boring, they go away.

What makes a book great, a so-called classic, it its quality of always being modern, of its author, though he be long dead, continuing to speak to each new generation.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

The Classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.

The newest books are those that never grow old.

As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared.

I think Jane Austen is like Shakespeare, in a slightly different way. I think people will continue to revisit these stories because they remain relevant, regardless of how you do them.

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

Literature is news that stays news.

Only a few things are worth a second reading—rarely are things of such enduring quality that they are read many times and live to inspire a second or third generation.

I love books that stand the test of time.

A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

A classic is a book that remains in print

I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.

Classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song.

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing.

Most of the literary classics are worth reading, if you've nothing better to do.

I think about Shakespeare. Because there have been hundreds of variations of Shakespeare's plays since they've been written, and I believe it's because they're important. They're still relevant today. 'Roots' is still relevant today. The idea that we shouldn't tell this story again is very strange to me.