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Monday, August 22, 2011

The Magician



The Magic of Humanity


The stories that you write, the pictures that you paint, the music you compose,

the crazy, foolish and incomprehensible things you say,

they’ll always be man’s apogee, his true flag […]

these stupid things you say—no matter how supremely unnecessary, perhaps even because of it —

will always be what most distinguishes us from beasts.

Even more than the atom, Sputnik, or interstellar rockets.

And the day these stupid things are no longer done or said,

men will become the wretched naked worms they were in caveman days.”



“Il colombre e altri cinquanta racconti”

Dino Buzzati

Dino Buzzati-Traverso (16 October 1906 - 28 January 1972) was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera.

His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.