Italo Calvino: on Cities, Desires and Memory

To the man who rides for long through wilderness it comes the desire of a city. Finally he arrives at Isidora, a city where the palaces' staircases are encrusted by marine snails, and where are manufactured, as works of art, telescopes and violins. Where if a foreigner hesitates between two women, he always finds a third one, and where the cockfights degenerate into always bloody brawls among bettors. In all these things the man used to think while wanting a city. Isidora is therefore the city of his dreams: with a difference. The city contained the dreamer as young, e at Isidora he arrives at advanced age. In that square there is a short wall on which old people stay looking at the youth, he is sitting in a row with them. Desires are already memories.

Italo Calvino,in 'The Invisible Cities'
Free Translation from Italian: 'Le Città Invisibili'