“A tale is born from an image, and the image extends and creates a network of meanings that are always equivocal.”

Share & Save

Meaning

The quote says that a story begins with a single image, and that image generates many related meanings. It also suggests those meanings are not fixed and can be interpreted in more than one way.

When It Was Said

Not documented yet.

Who It Was Said To

Not documented yet.

Historical Context

Not documented yet.

Source

Not documented yet.

Original Language & Translation

Originally said in English.

Did They Really Say It?

No source found on Wikiquote; the quote is listed as attributed.

Did You Know?

Not documented yet.

About Italo Calvino

Italian novelist and short story writer

Italo Calvino was an Italian novelist and short story writer. He is best known for the Our Ancestors trilogy, published between 1952 and 1959, and for later works such as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter's night a traveler. His fiction includes the three novels in Our Ancestors, the short story collection Cosmicomics, and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler. These works show the range of his imagination across fiction in different forms, from linked narratives to brief stories and more experimental novels.

More from Italo Calvino (155 quotes) →

READ THE SOURCE

Books by Italo Calvino

Marcovaldo, ovvero Le stagioni in città

1966

VIEW ON AMAZON

Le città invisibili

1998

VIEW ON AMAZON

Il barone rampante

1959

VIEW ON AMAZON

I nostri antenati

1960

VIEW ON AMAZON

Sous le soleil jaguar

1990

VIEW ON AMAZON