Roberto > Roberto's Quotes

“Lui diceva: «Il futuro sarà migliore, in futuro saremo liberi». E io allora non capivo, gli dicevo: «Nonno che vuol dire liberi, che cos’è la libertà?» E lui abbassava la testa e diventava triste e poi diceva: «È una cosa dei grandi, la libertà».”
― Francesca Mannocchi, Io Khaled vendo uomini e sono innocente

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“In life, if one wants seriously to understand how the world works, he must die at least once.”
― Giorgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

“Perché siamo diventati ciechi, Non lo so, forse un giorno si arriverà a conoscerne la ragione, Vuoi che ti dica cosa penso, Parla, Secondo me non siamo diventati ciechi, secondo me lo siamo, Ciechi che vedono, Ciechi che, pur vedendo, non vedono.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. ... The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“Difficile è credere in una cosa quando si è soli, e non se ne può parlare con alcuno. Proprio in quel tempo Drogo si accorse come gli uomini, per quanto possano volersi bene, rimangano sempre lontani; che se uno soffre, il dolore è completamente suo, nessun altro può prenderne su di sé una minima parte; che se uno soffre, gli altri per questo non sentono male, anche se l'amore è grande, e questo provoca la solitudine della vita.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”
― Richelle Mead, Frostbite

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Perché c’è un ordine segreto.
I libri non puoi metterli a caso.
L’altro giorno ho riposto Cervantes accanto a Tolstoj.
E ho pensato: se vicino ad Anna Karenina c’è Don Chisciotte, di sicuro quest’ultimo farà di tutto per salvarla.”
― Ettore Scola

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons