Il fuggiasco Quotes

“Did you hear what they told me?’

‘I did.’

‘What am I supposed to put in my report? That I arrested the twelve Apostles because they were traveling without passports?”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“As a child of the Seventies, I grew up thinking that death could be as light as a feather or as heavy as a mountain. Lolo’s death sailed over the rooftop of the world.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“The ideal way to ensure a healthy digestion is to go to the movies. The movie house is a place of truce, a non-combat area where, once the lights are dimmed and the film is running, the only reality is the movie itself. All the little realities of the individuals in the audience are canceled.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“When I became Jason, an English computer expert, I returned to a calmer and far more comfortable lifestyle. The cover verged on perfection; the one tiny defect was my complete ignorance of the English language and computers.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“Spending ten days in a subway station search for a four-year-old boy was an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Not merely because of the desperation that gripped me every minute of those ten days, but especially because of my sense of helplessness in the face of a city so huge that it could swallow up anything, anyone, without explanation, as if they had never existed. Amidst the most absolute indifference. Even a little boy that you had seen playing until just a few hours ago.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“The thing I hated most about moving was having to buy everything all over again; all the household objects, from furniture to silverware, that you find in any home. Normally, you buy them with the idea that they are going to last over time, be part of your everyday life, and have a history. For a fugitive, it’s different: the only criterion is temporary use, and so each and every object necessarily loses its worth. I thought of them as non-objects, the non-possessions of a non-person living a non-life.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“If I had simply agreed to serve out my time in prison, doing whatever I could to shorten the sentence, it would have been the smartest thing I could do in terms of the future of my own life. It would however have meant lending my endorsement to the legitimacy of the verdict and sentence issued against me. Instead, I opted for a gesture of complete rejection—flight, escape—to make an unmistakable distinction between truth and lie, justice and injustice, the law and blatant abuse of power.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“I asked nothing more than to be judged justly. My act didn’t always play well with my audience, and the reviews (which came in the form of verdicts) often panned my performance. In the end, however, the theater company of justice decided that, cost what it may, that role would belong to me for all time, even after the production had finished its run, and no more performances were scheduled. Playing “out of character” had therefore been my way of choosing freedom.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“It was a stunning blow to learn that there was no warrant for my arrest, much less an international all-points bulletin. I had lived for years like a hunted animal, while no one at all was looking for me, not even back home. That’s injustice for you.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“In ten days’ time, the police only managed to set down two pages of legal transcripts. In brief, it was an unpleasant experience. I only think back on it when I piss and I notice the whitish scars that the electrodes left on my dick.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco

“I have never been very good at dealing with the police. I always come off as a smart-ass, and whenever I claim to be innocent, not only am I generally not believed, but it tends to make my questioner lose his patience. I also have a special gift for creating misunderstandings in the dialogue. This tends to stoke the already simmering anger of the police, whose sole aim is to pry loose a nice solid confession and go home, happy to have earned their salary.”
― Massimo Carlotto, Il fuggiasco