May-en Sum

“A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira’s past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“There is no language without deceit.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

“You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities