I have to admit that I only read 'War and Peace' when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

To survive, you must tell stories.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Hope attracts chances.

He came back full of life and hope and determination.

The silent bear no witness against themselves.

For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they do but marshal us the way that we are going.

The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood. The militancy of women has harmed no human life save the lives of those who fought the battle of righteousness.

There's nothing more tragic than artists from the 70s still doing art from the 70s.

In the museums, everything is in quotation marks.

Jesus called us to abide in Him. The foundation of this reality means to talk with Him.

In the garden I see only your face From trees and blossoms I inhale only your fragrance.

Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world.