A real writer [...] looks not in another writer but himself.

Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.

Fascism rewarded jackasses in uniform. Democracy gives privileges to those in sports' gear. In Italy, political regimes come to pass. Jackasses remain. Triumphant.

The love of power excludes all others.

You give Italy Jesus Christ and you get the Roman Catholic Church.

Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians.

Cynics are all moralists, and merciless too.

An Italian university is a contradiction in terms.

Which ever one of you will want to become a journalist, let him remember to choose his own master: the reader.

Servitude, in many cases, is not forced upon by the masters, but a temptation of the servants.

Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.

In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.

What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old age.

Agriculture is the most destructive industry that we have. More than coal mining and other extractive industries.

God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper.

The creative life was the only one for a serious man.

Im wearing an outfit that looks just like a cupcake ... a pink frothy blouse, low cut ... everything a little inappropriately girlie ... Pink, pink, lot of pink, ... Out of Practice.

So far as I can see the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages.

I do not believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends.

Once you're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversations and actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over.