The real hero is always a hero by mistake.

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.

We can’t choose our poetic fathers any more than our biological ones — but we can choose how to come to terms with them.

I'm sure you have drawers overflowing with panties the ladies throw at the stage. We saw you guys play down at Mon Brewing a few times. Way to keep the Nineties alive.

I don't want to be romantic, but one of the most important things is to have happy buildings... it's like having a family with a lot of children.

The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.

It's up to each of us to help create a better world for our children.

You know, you don't get to survive that long without making some compromises.

This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

Man is not what he believes himself to be in his conscious decisions.

Unless things change radically, President Bush will be the first President since Herbert Hoover to have presided over a net loss of jobs during his administration.