Italo Calvino Quotes

Darkness is full of possibility.

As long as a thing is unknown, it belongs to us in a way that well-known things do not. For we have the opportunity to fill the empty, unknown spaces for ourselves, and in them there is room for imagination and for hope.

Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.

When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.

When books are opened, we discover that we have wings

To me there is something thrilling and exalting in the thought that we are drifting forward into a splendid mystery-into something that no mortal eye hath yet seen, and no intelligence has yet declared.

A book is like a door. You walk through the cover and you don't know what you're going to find.

I reminded myself: when a book lies unopened it might contain anything in the world, anything imaginable. It therefore, in that pregnant moment before opening, contains everything. Every possibility, both perfect and putrid. Surely such mysteries are the most enticing things You grant us in this mortal mere -- the fruit in the garden, too, was like this. Unknown, and therefore infinite. Eve and her mate swallowed eternity, every possible thing, and made the world between them.

Savor the mystery, Stephen, we don't get enough of them.

The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it.

Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale.

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

The future is hidden by a dark impenetrable veil, and yet we struggle to pierce through it.

The unknown is always interesting.

Once, the world was full of mysteries, some of them frightening, some of them wonderful, some of them merely fascinating. Now, it can be a banal and predictable place, the tracks of daily life so well-beaten and defined, our culture awash with the imbecile obvious, our existence suffocating in safety. But mysteries remain.

I love the unknown. I love the discovery of what will be happening and just kind of sitting back and not knowing.

There's nothing better than not knowing what's going to happen until you put the pieces together.

I don't know what's on the other side.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don't know what's going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don't know at all what you're going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you're a kid and you're reading stories.

If there wasn't mystery, people wouldn't have anything to ponder. If you already knew everything, you wouldn't have anything to think about and life would just be really boring.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

That's what I'm interested in: the space in between, the moment of imagining what is possible and yet not knowing what that is.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?