Falsehood Is Never In Words; It Is

You Are About To Begin Reading Italo Calvino's New Novel, If On A Winter's Night A Traveler.

If You Want To Know How Much Darkness There Is Around You, You Must Sharpen Your Eyes, Peering At The Faint Lights In The Distance.

What About Books? Well, Precisely Because You Have Denied It In Every Other Field, You Believe You May Still Grant Yourself Legitimately This Youthful Pleasure Of Expectation In A Carefully Circumscribed Area Like The Field Of Books, Where You Can Be Lucky Or Unlucky, But The Risk Of Disappointment Isn't Serious.

The Contradiction [trying To Use Russian Model To Reshape Italy] Grew To Such An Extent That I Felt Totally Cut Off From The Communist World And, In The End, From Politics. That Was Fortunate. The Idea Of Putting Literature In Second Place, After Politics, Is An Enormous Mistake, Because Politics Almost Never Achieves Its Ideals.

The Soul Is Often In The Surface, And The Importance Of 'depth' Is Overestimated.