Death and Judgment Quotes

“Though he did not believe, he was not untouched by the magic of belief ...”
― Donna Leon, Death and Judgment

“Vianello had the knack of getting people to talk. Especially if they were Venetians, the people he interviewed invariably warmed to this large, sweet-tempered man who gave every appearance of speaking Italian reluctantly, who was only too glad to lapse into their common dialect, a linguistic change that often carried its speakers along to unconscious revelation. ”
― Donna Leon, Death and Judgment

“Lampedusa had it right—things had to seem to change so that things could remain the same.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“Why bother to put the boy who broke into a house in jail when the man who stole billions from the health system is named ambassador to the country to which he had been sending the money for years?”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“Brunetti hizo girar el tenedor en la pasta y empezó a comer, entregándose a la voluptuosa degustación de la pasta cocida al punto justo, suavizada por la mantequilla y aromatizada por la exquisita trufa.”
― Donna Leon, Muerte y juicio

“Yes, but I don’t think it was deliberate. He just didn’t get it, that the question was ambiguous and didn’t mean that her brother had sex with them.” “She did, though?” Brunetti nodded again. “She’s much brighter than he is.” “Women usually are,” Paola said”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“It seems to me it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference,” he said. “Between what?” “The criminal and the wrong.” “Why do you think that is, Guido?” “I’m not sure. Perhaps because, as you said before, we don’t believe in the old things anymore, and we haven’t found anything new, anything else, to believe in.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“He often thought that the only safe procedure a person could undergo at the Ospedale Civile was an autopsy. it was the only time a patient ran no risk.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“International law, I think, and very good at it. I think I might have read something about a deal with Poland or Czechoslovakia—one of those places where they eat potatoes and dress badly—but I can’t remember which.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“Chiara,” he said, speaking very softly, “your mother is a troublemaker, a malcontent, and an agitator.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“And today, to the best of his knowledge, no one spoke against it, either, but today the silence was based on the belief that slavery had ceased to exist.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“I know you’re tired of hearing me say this, Guido, but I think plastic bottles are wrong, even though they’re certainly not criminal. Though,” she quickly added, “I think they will be within a few years. If we have any sense, that is.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“Silver fork novel,” she repeated. “Books with simple plots written to explain to people who made a lot of money how to behave in polite company.” “For yuppies?” Brunetti asked, honestly interested. Paola erupted in laughter. “No, Guido, not for yuppies. These books were written in the eighteenth century, when all that money poured into England from the colonies, and the fat wives of Yorkshire weavers had to be taught which fork to use.” She was quiet for a few minutes, considering what he had said. “But if I think about it for a minute, with a little updating, there’s no reason the same couldn’t be said of Bret Easton Ellis, even though he’s American.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“If anything, the spirit that drove him now was fiercer, but there was no denying the diminishing powers of his body. He”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“Both of them had always taken delight in this most wonderful of holdovers from the academic Stone Age, the fact that the rector of the university was addressed as “Il Magnifico Rettore,” the only thing Brunetti had learned in twenty years on the fringes of the university that had managed to make academic life sound interesting to him.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“a man in whom violence boiled below the surface in much the same way that fresh-poured polenta waited for the chance to burn the mouth of anyone who tried to eat it.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“hard on a curve and lost control of the”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning