I wanted the music to be full, to surround us, to lift us like the swell, so I rented a bloody orchestra. You only live once.
I suppose that's because you have faith in the judicial system that will try us. Yes. I have faith that we will be found guilty and that we will be shot. Your faith will be rewarded. Why? It hasn't be...
I don't want an ambulance. I want you to sit down and shut up. But Signore, an ambulance could take you to a hospital. They could help you. I don't want to die in a hospital. You wouldn't! You'd live!...
He knew very well that love could be like the most beautiful singing, that it could make death inconsequential, that it existed in forms so pure and strong that it was capable of reordering the univer...
For instance, she spoke of certain kinds of dogs as Leviners. She called the areas near Quebec march-lands. She referred to diclesiums, liripoops, rapparees, dagswains, bronstrops, caroteels, opuntias...
As the clockwork of the millennia moved a notch in front of their eyes, it had taken their thoughts from small things and reminded them of how vulnerable they were to time.
As powerful a figure as this man was, still, he was more vulnerable than the slight little girl next to Alessandro. Even Alessandro knew, even at this moment, that the world had worn down the attorney...
Adversity has its compensations, that in falling, and in failing, we rise. It is as if there is a hand behind us that sets to right all imbalances. Why do you think the saints seldom had the temporal...
[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dan...
You’re always condemned to die. It’s just a matter of timing.
You don't want to be content with yourself. People who are, are insufferable, the walking dead. But you don't want to be entirely driven, either, because then you just skate over the world and never t...
You can come back, his father had said. Why leave if I'll come back? Alessandro had asked, and then had quoted Horace. 'New skies the exile finds, but the heart is still the same.
When you die, you know, you hear the insistent pounding that defines all things, whether of matter or energy, since there is nothing in the universe, really, but proportion.
There are times for sleep, for inactivity, dreaming, indiscipline, even lethargy. You’ll know when you deserve these times. They come after you’ve been broken. I’m speaking of a helpless, tranquil sta...
The best thing in the world is the truth. You find it out anyway, in the end, or sooner.
People in my constituency are starving and born with sixteen fingers. Did you ever eat weasel shish-kebob? Freddy doesn’t walk by the side of the motorways to gather dandelions for his salad, but the...
No matter what it is, if you don’t move your eyes and set the pace yourself, your intellect is sentenced to death. The mind, you see, is like a muscle. For it to remain agile and strong, it must work....
Marriages are made in heaven which is why they cause so much trouble on earth.
I’ve had a profession for a number of years, and it has mastered me. A profession is like a great snake that wraps itself around you. Once you are enwrapped, you are in a slow fight for the rest of yo...
It was easy to be clever, but hard to look into the face of God, who is found not so much by cleverness as by stillness.