Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened outside the book . . . The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of event, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story. ("If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979) H.H.)

Italo Calvino