Romance Quote by Italo Calvino — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“I was living and dying in all the fibers of what is chewed and digested and in all the fibers that absorb the sun, consuming and digesting. Under the thatched arbor of a restaurant on a river-bank, where Olivia had waited for me, our teeth began to move slowly, with equal rhythm, and our eyes stared into each other's with the intensity of serpents'—serpents concentrated in the ecstasy of swallowing each other in turn, as we were aware, in our turn, of being swallowed by the serpent that digests us all, assimilated ceaselessly in the process of ingestion and digestion, in the universal cannibalism that leaves its imprint on every amorous relationship and erases the lines between our bodies and sopa de frijoles, huachinango a la vera cru-zana, and enchiladas.”

“Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”

“It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books.”

“Sections in the bookstore”

“DESIRE: Trust me, if you reject love long enough you’ll forget how to accept it.”

“Never let other people bring you down let Jesus be the one who brings you down, because he knows what he is doing”

“He held out his hand to Sophie, just like Mrs. Pentstemmon, but a little less royally. Sophie levered herself up, wondering if she was meant to kiss this hand or not. But since she felt more like raising her stick and beating the King over the head with it, she shook the King's hand and gave a creaking little curtsy.”

“If ever there was something she needed to stick around and fight for, Luc was that something.”

“It had happened. Thucydides, his archrival, was a general. Glaucon, from his own tribe, was a general. And Pericles was no longer a general. He was just a citizen with one vote. And an idea”

“The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.”