Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?

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.

It's absurd how crazy love can make you......but even more absurd how stupid jealousy can make you!

Everyone has their wings, it just so happens that mine are black.

We never ask God to forgive anybody except when we haven't.

You love people, not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for their values; their virtues.

I don't think I'm really a rude person, but now I see myself on television, I think, 'Oh, God, that is a bit strong.' And I wonder if I've always been like that and I haven't been aware of it.

Sentimentalism is the working off on yourself of feelings you haven't really got.

What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?

Physiognomy is often a great falsifier, though as a rule it is honest enough.

Look at me Elise. Tell me what you think I’m feeling,” he murmured, then bent his head to hers and pressed his mouth to her parted lips.

I love to entertain and make people laugh.