"Amor, ch'al cor gentile ratto s'apprende
prese costui de la bella persona
che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende.

Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,
Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona..."

"Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart,
Seized him with my beautiful form
That was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me.

Love, which pardons no beloved from loving,
took me so strongly with delight in him
That, as you see, it still abandons me not..."
— Dante Alighieri (Inferno)

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace - and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
— Graham Greene (The Third Man and The Fallen Idol)

"First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It's alluring, but complicated. It's the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis."
— Beppe Severgnini (La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind)

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
— Graham Greene

"In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Within months, his army collapsed and fled. It was routed not by the Italian army but by a microbe. A mysterious new disease spread through sex killed many of Charles’s soldiers and left survivors weak and disfigured. French soldiers spread the disease across much of Europe, and then it moved into Africa and Asia. Many called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian disease. Arabs called it the Christian disease. Today, it is called syphilis."
— Carl Zimmer

""Goddammit! How does the world keep spinning with women on the planet?"

Ian St. John in THE POMPEII SCROLL"
— Jacqueline LaTourrette

" Yes, sir!
I, like a true Italia man, will surrenderr, then eat, sleep, and sing!
Oh...Look it's kitty!"
— Axis Powers Hetalia- Italy

"...Noi leggeveamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancialotto, come amor lo strinse;
Soli eravamo e senza alcun sospetto
Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso;
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemmo il disiato riso
Esser baciato da cotanto amante,
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante.
Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse:
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante."

""We were reading one day, to pass the time,
of Lancelot, how love had seized him.
We were alone, and without any suspicion
And time and time again our eyes would meet
over that literature, and our faces paled,
and yet one point alone won us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by so true a lover,
This one, who never shall be parted from me,
kissed my mouth, all a-tremble.
Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it
That day we read no further."
— Dante Alighieri (Inferno)

"Беше времето на небесната война."
...
"Нейният баща и беше разправял за ръцете. И за кучешките лапи. Винаги, когато оставаше насаме с някое куче, той се навеждаше и помирисваше кожата на стъпалата му. "Тази миризма - обичаше да казва, сякаш описваше аромата на глътка бренди - е най-великата на света! Букет! Полъх от грандиозни пътешествия." Тя се преструваше на погнусена, но кучешката лапа си оставаше едно чудо - никога не лъхаше на мръсотия. "Като катедрала! - бе възкликнал баща й. - Може би лъх от тази или онази градина, от зелена поляна или от цикламена леха - досущ смес-концентрат от всички обходени през дена пътеки."
...
"Спалните бяха притихнали като тъмни джобове на златен костюм."
...
"На зазоряване, когато се промъкваше вкъщи, тя го намираше заспал в креслото на баща й, изтощен от професионални и лични грабежи. Тя мислешеза Караваджо. Има такива хора, просто трябва да се вкопчиш в тях, да се впиеш в плътта им, за да не полудееш в тяхната компания."
...
"В Канада пианото не може без вода. Отваря се капакът и се оставя чша вода. След месец чашата е празна."
...
"В пустинята водата е обичана като жена - изтичащ между пръстите лазур, чийто капки галят гърлото като звуци от любимо име. Поглъщаш нечие отсъствие. На жена. В Кайро. Бели, протяжни извивки на надигащо се от леглото тяло - тя се надвесва през прозореца и дъждът попива в голата й плът."
...
"Тя го мразеше, когато говореше така. Тогава погледът й ставаше любезен, а вътрешно изпитваше желание да го зашлеви. Винаги бе искала да го зашлеви и осъзнаваше сексуалността на този акт."
...
"Красивите песни на вярата пронизват въздуха като стрели, минаретата разговарят, сякаш разнасят слуха за любовниците, които вървят в студения утринен въздух, наситен с миризмата на дървени въглища и хашиш. Грешници в свещен град."
...
"От този миг нататък, бе му пошушнала тя преди, или ще намерим душите си, или ще ги изгубим."
...
"Как се случи това? Да се влюбя и да се разчленя.
Бях в ръцете й. Бях дръпнал ръкава на ризата до рамото, за да ивдя белега от ваксина. Обичам го, казах. Този блед ореол на нейната ръка. Виждам как спринцовката чертае драскотина. Пробив - и срумът прониква. Това се е случилоотдавна, когато е била на девет години, в салона за физкултура.""
— Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient)

"If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."

(Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)"
— Winston S. Churchill

"Maybe the whole of italy is becoming a sort of Sicily."
— Leonardo Sciascia (The Day of the Owl)

"The delay in the application of the policy to books has several explanations. For one thing, Blackshirts were not, nor have they yet become, bookworms; and the intellectual bread of Mussolini himself is made, usually, of clippings. They did not care too much about things which they could not hate since they usually did not know them...."
— Giuseppe Borgese

"Indee, when i came to Italy, i expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying","We understand how it is--we have one, too.""
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"Scientists say that the palm tree line, that is the climate suitable to growth of the palm, is moving north, five hundred metres, I think it was, every year...The palm tree line...I call it the coffee line, the strong black coffee line...It's rising like mercury in a thermometer, this palm tree line, this strong coffee line, this scandal line, rising up throughout Italy and already passed Rome..."
— Leonardo Sciascia (The Day of the Owl)

"Italian cities have long been held up as ideals, not least by New Yorkers and Londoners enthralled by the ways their architecture gives beauty and meaning to everyday acts."
— Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking)