Unto Us a Son Is Given Quotes

“They hadn't lived long enough to understand what grace it was to die in an instant and not to linger.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“How strange, Brunetti reflected: we choose to love people despite their flaws and weaknesses. We train ourselves to overlook or ignore them; sometimes these failures of character even fill us with a special kind of tenderness that has nothing whatsoever in it of a sense of superiority. Like bombs, these flaws tick quietly through our lives, and theirs, until we learn to ignore them, and then forget them. Until some unlikely impossibility causes them to explode, when finally we recognize how dangerous these”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“Votta”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“What fools men are to raze a city, destroying tombs, and temples, and sacred places, when they are so soon to die themselves.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“Henry James escribió Los papeles de Aspern”
― Donna Leon, En el nombre del hijo

“La nube del no saber —respondió el conte, e hizo una pausa—. Siempre me ha parecido un título maravilloso para una autobiografía.”
― Donna Leon, En el nombre del hijo

“Yes, I was just thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘About how a writer can make the most awful things…’
Brunetti didn’t want to say ‘beautiful’, but that was what he meant. ‘Can make them powerful,’ he chose instead. It wasn’t the same, but it was also true.
She surprised him by saying, ‘I’ve never understood why you studied law.’ She picked up her coffee and took a sip.
‘I’m not sure I do either.’
‘Do you regret it?’
He shook his head. ‘No, the law is beautiful. It’s like building a cathedral.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ Paola said with a smile.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“He heard footsteps coming from the kitchen and turned to see his wife approaching. In that instant he wanted to take some sort of emotional photograph so that he could, sometime in the future when things were different, pull it out of his memory and look at it and say, ‘I’ve lived a happy life’.”
― Donna Leon , Unto Us a Son Is Given

“It would be nice if we could choose the people we love, but love chooses them.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“we choose to love people despite their flaws and weaknesses. We train ourselves to overlook or ignore them; sometimes these failures of character even fill us with a special kind of tenderness that has nothing whatsoever in it of a sense of superiority. Like bombs, these flaws tick quietly through our lives, and theirs, until we learn to ignore them, and then forget them. Until some unlikely impossibility causes them to explode, when finally we recognize how dangerous these people are and have been all along.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“We train ourselves to overlook or ignore them; sometimes these failures of character even fill us with a special kind of tenderness that has nothing whatsoever in it of a sense of superiority.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“As he started down towards his office, Brunetti thought about how taking a look at one’s unconscious motives and prejudices was like walking barefoot through cloudy water: you never knew whether you were going to step on something disgusting or bang your toe into a rock.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“involuntarily”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“he involved in the bankruptcy of that plastics factory? Ten years ago? Fifteen?’ Of course, that was where Brunetti had read the name: the factory up near”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“Intellectuals”?’ Brunetti repeated. ‘I think it’s more true to say they’re the cartographers of the Flat Earth Society”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“Patta would have fallen upon these details as a beast upon prey and torn into them in an attempt to find nourishment.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given