Italo Calvino Quotes

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text.

The art of reading between the lines is as old as manipulated information.

I think it's not about what you say; it's about what you don't say.

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines.

It's a bold statement but I think people need to read between the lines.

When people talk to me about the weather, I always feel they mean something else.

I don't want to bury anything in poetry.

'Frankenstein' is a work rich in possible meanings, so the horror-show interpretation is as valid as any.

Often it is important to listen to what people aren't saying.

It's what people don't say that is often the most revealing.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

In terms of the secrets that imbue and underlie 'Fall on Your Knees', they were as much of a mystery to me as I was creating the story as they are to the readers.

Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

The ideal, it seems to me, is to show things happening and allow the reader to decide what they mean.

It made me alive to the fact that the most important thing sometimes is what isn't said - to prepare for moments of revelation that can be read entirely on actors' faces without dialogue.

From Ernest Hemingway's stories, I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.

The kind of acting I love is when you watch and you discover what you think perhaps you weren't supposed to see: the chink in the armor.

When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said.

I think books should have secrets, like people do.

What isn't said is as important as what is said.

I seldom deal in symbolisms; if there be hidden meanings in my verse, they are there without my knowledge.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

As much as movies are about the words that you're saying, they're also about what's not said, the silent moments.