Writers divide into those who write biting their nails and those who don't. Some writers write licking their finger.
Man is simply the best chance we know of that matter has had of providing itself with information about itself.
Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.
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.
Every time I've had to do journalistic investigations, I've cursed, but later I discovered that it had helped me enormously with writing fiction. It's the one thing that can save me from becoming an academic writer.
I do not have any political commitments anymore. I'm politically a total agnostic; I'm one of the few writers in Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific political party.
I write by hand, making many, many corrections. I would say I cross out more than I write. I have to hunt for words when I speak, and I have the same difficulty when writing.
In 'Cosmicomics,' I came close to science fiction - I was inspired by cosmological subjects and the workings of the universe and invented a character who was a sort of witness to everything that was happening inside the solar system.
Sometimes I try to concentrate on the story I would like to write, and I realize that what interests me is something else entirely, or, rather, not anything precise but everything that does not fit in what I ought to write.
The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.
When I'm writing a book, I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try to understand what I've really done and to compare my intentions with the result.
The Classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.