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Quotes by Italian Authors
"What he sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveller's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past. Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places."
"The difference between the true and the false is only a prejudice of ours."
"The point is that newspapers are not there for spreading news but for covering it up. X happens, you have to report it, but it causes embarrassment for too many people, so in the same edition you add some shock headlines - mother kills four children, savings at risk of going up in smoke, letter from Garibaldi insulting his lieutenant Nino Bixio discovered, etc. - so news drowns in a great sea of information."
"Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not in literature. Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement."
"I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly."
"A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not."
"To emend one's thinking constantly is a desirable practice, and one I often engage in--sometimes to the point of being almost schizophrenic. But there are cases where one should not parade changes just to prove one is up to date. In the field of ideas, as much as in other fields, monogamy is not necessarily a sign of absence of libido."
"Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale."
"It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once."
"I was upset. I had always believed logic was a universal weapon and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed."
"But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects."
"No counsel is more sincere than that given on ships which are in danger."
"Our life is full of empty space."
"Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements."
"Humans: become atheists each and all! God will nevertheless welcome you with all his heart!"
"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power."
"From shit, thus, I extract pure Shinola."
"I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts."
"A woman is always a mystery: one must not be fooled by her face and her hearts inspiration."
"The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the lessI value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to do; andas the only element of salvation I recognize faith, which can wait patiently,without asking too many questions."
"There, Master Niketas,' Baudolino said, 'when I was not prey to the temptations of this world, I devoted my nights to imagining other worlds. A bit with the help of wine, and a bit with that of the green honey. There is nothing better than imagining other worlds,' he said, 'to forget the painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn't yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one."
"Just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper."
"There are those who have a desire to love, but do not have the capacity to love."
"He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always."
"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden."
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