Italo Calvino Quotes

What makes a classic is difficult to define. It's entirely subjective, of course. And the term is employed far too promiscuously.

The work that lasts over time is the work which still speaks to us when all contemporary interest in that work is extinct.

Elvis is great and so is anybody who lasts like he does.

'Hairspray' has never been irrelevant, which is, in some ways, heartbreaking.

If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is not old-fashioned.

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

Shakespeare and his work will always be relevant. He wrote those pieces hundreds of years ago and we haven't really changed as humans, have we? We have to deal with love, honour and adultery now - people were the same then, too - that's what's so wonderful and powerful.

I think that's what really a substantial work is, it's forever. It's the truth now and it was the truth then, and it will be the truth tomorrow.

When you make music, and even if it's commercially successful, it doesn't mean that it's going to hold up. It takes time to sort of take stock of what you've done and whether it's got legs and whether it's going to really have a place.

I can't think of another actor who acquired stardom so quickly, who held it for such a short time, and then kept it for such a long time. James Dean became a star in one calendar year, and then he left us. But he's still being talked about, he's still being revered, he's still being iconized forty years later. I don't think there's another example like it in the entire history of movies.

Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.

Shakespeare wrote about what was happening during the time; it still relates to us now.

A legacy is a lot of times determined by how people accept your music. And sometimes people's legacy starts late or starts early, or they last a long time or a short amount of time. As a musician, I've never taken an approach of wanting to try to control that because I don't think that I can.

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.

I don't believe in updating. If a play works, it draws something from being true to its time.

In my case I want my films to be fresh even after a decade of watching it.

It's an honor to sit back and see people loving the things that you did 25 years ago and still be here and be amongst the crowd to receive those blessings.

The great thing about James Baldwin and his writing is that it's still fresh every time you pick it up. That's also the sad thing about his writing sometimes, too.

Good music will always be recognized in the end.

Long as the Earth is here, hip-hop'll be here.

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.

I want to be a part of films that will be watched even after twenty years.

All the buzz can be very much here today and gone tomorrow, but my focus is creating music that will last forever.

There are heroes and then there are legends, heroes get remembered but legends never die.

We've been fortunate. 'Push It' will never die.