He's already tan, and leaning on the rail in his yellow linen shirt, with the pure glory of Venice racing behind him, I think he looks like someone I'd like to run off with, if I already hadn't.
~ Frances Mayes
erhaps it was the difference in age between the countries—America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires.
~ Jess Walter
And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening benediction.
~ Donna Leon
That's what lay behind the feud under way in the Republic: a battle between different noble family factions in a fight for power. Serving this side or the other was of no interest to Mathias. But the consequences of a Venice under the Pope's direct control weren't at all to his liking. His beloved books would be burned by ignorant, avid priests. Men like Malachia would win.It was the same old struggle. The same fight Gheorg had chosen, the same fight that might take him to Wittenberg. But he wouldn't clear the way for Alexander VI. With what little strength he possessed, even though he was nothing more than a pawn of a chessboard, that extended farther then he could see, Mathias would help those in power smash what had all the makings of a major plot, one designed to overturn the government in power in La Serenissima. And these thoughts allowed the monk to find the first answer to the many question with which he still felt burdened.He and the Borgias did NOT share the same Church.
~ Riccardo Bruni
I wish Italy would stop being a crybaby. I wish he would kick his bad habit of wanting to eat pasta everywhere. I wish he would stop getting a stomachache every time he ate geleto. I wish he would learn to throw a grenade properly. I wish his older brother would stop trying to punch me. I wish-*babble babble babble*Germany . . . That's impossible . . .
~ Hidekaz Himaruya
In Italy we have not a Common law legal system, we have a stupid one instead!
~ Carl William Brown
Don Bradman will bat no more against England, and two contrary feelings dispute within us: relief, that our bowlers will no longer be oppressed by this phenomenon; regret, that a miracle has been removed from among us. So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal.
~ R.c. Robertson-Glasgow
If he knew, if he only knew that I was giving him every chance to put two and two together and come up with a number bigger than infinity.
~ André Aciman
Men speak of God’s love for man… but if providence does not come in this hour, where is He then? My conclusion is simple. The Semitic texts from Bronze Age Palestine of which Christianity is comprised still fit uncomfortably well with contemporary life. The Old Testament depicts a God capricious and cruel; blood sacrifice, vengeance, genocide; death and destruction et al. Would He not approve of Herr Hitler and the brutal, tribalistic crusade against Hebrews and non-Christian ‘untermensch?’One thing is inarguable. His church on Earth has produced some of the most vigorous and violent contribution to the European fascist cause.It is synergy. Man Created God, even if God Created Man; it all exists in the hubris and apotheosis of the narcissistic soul, and alas, all too many of the human herd are willing to follow the beastly trait of leadership. The idea of self-emancipation and advancement, with Europe under the jackboot of fascism, would be Quixotic to the point of mirthless lunacy.
~ Daniel S. Fletcher
That spring was the start of everything, for me. Before then, I might have been half-asleep, drifting through life.
~ Lucy Foley
In Venice, things not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers, and quaysides of my native city. I row into the neck of the Grand Canal, and, one by one, the reflection of each colorful façade appears, only to dissipate into wavering, shimmering shards under my oar.
~ Laura Morelli
It’s finding out where we came from that helps guide us to where we are going.
~ Mona Rodriguez
I don't believe we shall ever again have any form of society in which men will be free. One should not hope for it. One should not hope for anything. Hope is invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy.
~ Pier Paolo Pasolini
So I am perfectly free to buy any goods that are legally sold throughout Europe, provided that they can be delivered, even though they are not legal in Italy, even because in Italy only stupidity is legal.
Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.
The student has his Rome, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world and the glories of a modern one.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The first move was to turn to the one great, perfectly visible and certified revolution in the recent history of the human race [the Google search-engine].
~ Nicola Lagioia
Just like life, reality shifted and twisted out of her grasp [Elena's view on Gran Sasso]
~ Kirsten Arcadio
Hey, I just thought of something.What?When we're together, we make one whole Italian.
~ Jenna Evans Welch
...they were no more than steaks served up to portly politicians who controlled the personnel departments of the TV stations. (Showgirls in Italy)
~ Tobias Jones
I looked up and beyond him again, focusing in on the horror that swords, arrows, clubs, and staffs left behind on human flesh. The open wounds. The blood, The brokenness. The inglorious remains of war.
~ Lisa Tawn Bergren
There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?
~ Yoleen Valai
Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him sweetly on the lips, “I promise you a love affair with a sun-bathed Austrian princess beyond anything you imagine—in love, in beauty, in intensity. A love that will power you to the end of our time together. You are going to be a fortunate man, Geoffrey Ashbrook.
~ Paul A. Myers
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts.
~ Gordon Sinclair
Little do we find any Phoenician architecture or plastic art at all comparable even to those of Italy, to say nothing of the lands where art was native.
~ Theodor Mommsen
After about the first Millennium, Italy was the cradle of Romanesque architecture, which spread throughout Europe, much of it extending the structural daring with minimal visual elaboration.
~ Harry Seidler
Italy has great food and Barcelona has great energy.
~ Stefon Harris
Italy in the first years got food, for the first year or the first periods got food. Then we got raw materials and then we got tool machines, let's say, instruments for working.
~ Gianni Agnelli
I will say that the food in both Japan and Italy was immaculate. I don't remember having bad food in either country.
~ Daniel Gillies
Italy will always have the best food.
~ Diane Von Furstenberg
No matter where I've been overseas, the food stinks, except in Italy.
~ Carmen Electra
In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, - into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion.
~ Edward Everett
I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy... and then I did Spain and France by myself.
~ Michael Fassbender
