You Are About To Begin

For Those Who Pass It Without Entering, The City Is One Thing; It Is Another For Those Who Are Trapped By It And Never Leave. There Is The City Where You Arrive For The First Time; And There Is Another City Which You Leave Never To Return. Each Deserves A Different Name; Perhaps I Have Already Spoken Of Irene Under Other Names; Perhaps I Have Spoken Only Of Irene.

This Is What I Mean When I Say I Would Like To Swim Against The Stream Of Time: I Would Like To Erase The Consequences Of Certain Events And Restore An Initial Condition. But Every Moment Of My Life Brings With It An Accumulation Of New Facts, And Each Of These New Facts Bring With It Consequences; So The More I Seek To Return To The Zero Moment From Which I Set Out, The Further I Move Away From It. . . .

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 More Enlightened Our Houses Are, The More Their Walls Ooze Ghosts.

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.