Yair’s Reviews > The Nonexistent Knight > Status Update

"As I write this book, following a tale told in an ancient almost illegible chronicle, I realise only now that I have filled page after page and am still at the very beginning."

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 101). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

'“Let them go, they’re young, let them get on with it,” said Charlemagne, with the habit, usual to men of action, of considering movement always good, but already with the bitterness of the old who suffer at losing things of the past more than they enjoy greeting those of the future."'

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 83). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"Each nun is given her own penance here in the convent, her own way of gaining eternal salvation. Mine is this of writing tales. And a hard penance it is."

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 68). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"The art of writing tales consists in an ability to draw the rest of life from the nothing one has understood of it, but life begins again at the end of the page when one realises that one knew nothing whatsoever."

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 58). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"In this state of uncertainty Raimbaut would have liked to confide in the knight with white armor, as the only one who might understand him; he had no idea why."

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 46). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

"World conditions were still confused in the era when this took place. It was not rare then to find names and thoughts and forms and institutions that corresponded to nothing in existence."

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 31). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

“How come?”

“How otherwise?”

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (pp. 19-20). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

“Well, well! Who’d have thought it!” exclaimed Charlemagne. “And how do you do your job, then, if you don’t exist?” “By will power,” said Agilulf, “and faith in our holy cause!”

Calvino, Italo. The Nonexistent Knight (p. 5). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.