“But it is the software that gives the orders, acting on the outside world and on machines that exist only as functions of software and evolve so that they can work out ever more complex programs.”

— Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988), "Lightness"; tr. Patrick Creagh (1996)

About Italo Calvino

1923 – 1985

Italian novelist, author of "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler".

“Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.”

“Your first book already defines you, while you are really far from being defined.”

“It is true that software cannot exercise its powers of lightness except through the weight of hardware.”

“It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

“He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.”

“Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.”

“The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.”

“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings.”

“I still believe that when people really make the effort to understand each other, the possibilities are limitless.”