Conversations in Sicily Quotes

“Thus those who suffered personal misfortune and those who suffered the pain of the wronged world were together in the nude tomb of wine, and could be like spirits, finally parted from this world of suffering and wrongs.”
― Elio Vittorini, Conversations in Sicily

“Then, as I was waiting, I saw a kite come up over the valley, and I followed it with my eyes as it passed above me into the sunlight high overhead, and I asked myself why, after all, the world was not A Thousand and One Nights, the way it was when I was seven. I heard bagpipes, the goats bells, and voices carrying across the slope of roofs and the valley, and I asked myself this question many times over as I watched the kite in the air. We call them flying dragons in Sicily, as somehow they embody China or Persia in the Sicilian sky, with their sapphire and opal colors and their geometry, and watching it I couldn`t help but ask myself why, really, the faith one has at seven doesn`t last forever.”
― Elio Vittorini, Conversations in Sicily

“Člověk v sedmi letech nezná světské špatnosti, nezná bolest a nezná nedoufání, neskličují ho vidiny, ale zná ženu. Nikdy zplozenec mužského pohlaví nezná ženu tak jako v sedmi letech. Je pro něho tehdy nikoliv oporou, nikoliv radostí a ani žertem. Je jistotou světa; je nesmrtelná.”
― Elio Vittorini, Conversations in Sicily