(no subject)
"With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else."
"I have neither desires nor fears," the Khan declared, "and my dreams are composed either by my mind or by chance."
"Cities also believe they are the work of the mind or of chance, but neither the one nor the other suffices to hold up their walls. You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but the answer it gives to a question of yours."
"Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx."
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities 44
"I have neither desires nor fears," the Khan declared, "and my dreams are composed either by my mind or by chance."
"Cities also believe they are the work of the mind or of chance, but neither the one nor the other suffices to hold up their walls. You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but the answer it gives to a question of yours."
"Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx."
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities 44