Nobody These Days Holds The

Biographical Data, Even Those Recorded In The Public Registers, Are The Most Private Things One Has, And To Declare Them Openly Is Rather Like Facing A Psychoanalyst.

The Catalogue Of Forms Is Endless: Until Every Shape Has Found Its City, New Cities Will Continue To Be Born. When The Forms Exhaust Their Variety And Come Apart, The End Of Cities Begins.

You Are About To Begin Reading Italo Calvino's New Novel, If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel Every Other Thought. Let The World Around You Fade. Best To Close The Door; The Tv Is Always On In The Next Room. Tell The Others Right Away, "no, I Don't Want To Watch Tv!" Raise Your Voice -- They Won't Hear You Otherwise -- "i'm Reading! I Don't Want To Be Disturbed!" Maybe They Haven't Heard You, With All That Racket; Speak Louder, Yell: "i'm Beginning To Read Italo Calvino's New Novel!" Or If You Prefer, Don't Say Anything: Just Hope They'll Leave You Alone.

Memory's Images, Once They Are Fixed In Words, Are Erased," Polo Said. "perhaps I Am Afraid Of Losing Venice All At Once, If I Speak Of It, Or Perhaps, Speaking Of Other Cities, I Have Already Lost It, Little By Little.

Though I Leave The House As Little As Possible, I Have The Impression That Someone Is Disturbing My Papers. More Than Once I Have Discovered That Some Pages Were Missing From My Manuscripts. A Few Days Afterward I Would Find The Pages In Their Place Again. But Often I No Longer Recognize My Manuscripts, As If I Had Forgotten What I Had Written, Or As If Overnight I Were So Changed That No Longer Recognized Myself In The Self Of Yesterday.