The listener retains only the words he is expecting. The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing; the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another; and yet another， that which I might dictate late in life， if I were taken prisoner by Genoese pirates and put in irons in the same cell with an author of adventure stories. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.
听的人只记着他希望听到的东西。你以慈悲侧耳倾听我描述的是一个世界，在我回家后第二天在搬运工和贡多拉船夫中流传的却是另外一个世界;而我晚年如果成了热那亚海盗的俘虏，跟一位传奇小说作家同囚一室，口述一次，那又将是另外一个世界。掌控故事的不是声音，而是耳朵。
——《看不见的城市》