Transient Desires Quotes

“He looked at his wedding ring, twirled it around once or twice with his thumb. What pleasure it gave him to touch it, as though it were some sort of cult object, invested with magic powers, always near at hand, like a friendly spirit.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“There had been no noise from any other part of the apartment, but that didn’t exclude the possibility of Paolo’s presence, especially if she had given her soul over to reading. He sometimes told her that Attila could storm through the house and she’d not notice if she were reading. She had most recently disputed this by claiming that it would depend on the book.
Her door was open, so he went in. And found her on the sofa, with Henry James.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“The area confirmed his feelings about Giudecca: bleak cement buildings, crudely rectangular, devoid of any attempt at embellishment or adornment: cubes for living in, worsened – at least in his eyes – by the view: across the sullen waters of the laguna sprawled the petrochemical horror of Marghera, staggered rows of brick smokestacks from which spewed, day and night… Brunetti’s thoughts stopped there, for he had, like the other residents of Venice, little idea of what rose up in thick clouds from those stacks and even less reason to believe what he was told it was.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“I give only one example of the falsity of gossip and hearsay, and I urge my readers to beware of incredible tales, however widely they might be believed and instead to believe the unvarnished truth.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“He realized how primitive this feeling was but, as a friend of his father had often said, he had only one head, so he had only one way to think about things.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“There had been no noise from any other part of the apartment, but that did not exclude the possibility of Paola’s presence, especially if she had given her soul over to reading. He sometimes told her that Attila could storm through the house and she’d not notice if she were reading. She had most recently disputed this by claiming that it would depend on the book.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“A love that dared not speak its name’? In recent years, Brunetti had come to wish that some sorts of love would decide to speak their names a bit less loudly. Did people not realize how tiresome so much of this conversation was to anyone who thought the sexual behaviour of other people was not a matter to discuss or judge?”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“wish that some sorts of love would decide to speak their names a bit less loudly. Did people not realize how tiresome so much of this conversation was to anyone who thought the sexual behaviour of other people was not a matter to discuss or judge?”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“Brunetti watched Cesco trying to decide whether to say something else, so he made himself look as much like an oak tree as possible: patient, motionless, secure.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“he could just tabulate all the hours he’d spent talking about politics and politicians during his life and could pack them together like a snowball and somehow add them to his life, how much longer would he live? Even more interesting, how else might he have used that time? He could have learned another language; to knit and have made sweaters or long, uneven scarves for everyone. What colour Judo belt would he be entitled to wear by now?”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“Nieddu’s gesture came of the same mysterious, irresistible urge to make things better for other people. For a relative, for a stranger: the urge to make things better was in our marrow.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“Se Dio vuole,’ Alaimo said. Griffoni made a noise, half gasp and half laugh. ‘If God wills,’ she said.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“O tempora, o mores,”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires