The Stolen Lady Quotes

“Do the Elgin marbles or the Rosetta stone 'belong to Britain? These treasures have come to us at the Louvre through various circumstances; they have passed through many places and hands. They are not ours. We are only custodians. Our job is to protect and save them from damage and destruction. But they belong to all of us, all of civilization. They belong to the future.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Perhaps it's when we might lose it all that we finally gain an appreciation for things we once took for granted.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“I am a man of peace, but my father loves to argue, to blame to accuse.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Books have the power to transport us, to allow us to escape to another time and place, just by reading some words on a page or screen. That's the closest thing to magic I know. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that art matters. In times of strife, we turn to stories---books, movies, dance, the visual arts. Stories and creativity help make meaning out chaos and fear. They make us human.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Here in this, windswept, shadowed world, all of that seems so far away, a place God surely intended to be His own masterpiece. The steep slopes, snow-caked crags, rugged angles and curves; it is the most magnificent sculpture that could ever exist. No rowdy upstart sculptor could ever attempt such a creation.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“That I've perhaps taken a step longer, than my leg. Pride is a mortal sin, of course...”
― Laura Morelli, THE STOLEN LADY: A Novel of WWII & the Mona Lisa

“We have to stop them from taking what is rightfully ours---what rightly belongs to the cultural patrimony of all humanity.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Bellina at least was valued. It was enough. There was no need to chase mysteries and politics. Betrayals were not nearly so romantic and exciting as she had once thought.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“To make a big change, something must push and something else pull.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Who would want to destroy something that celebrated the best of human creativity and achievement?”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Instead, that centuries-old Florentine lady had made Anne think about something more. Something bigger than herself. Of things that gave life mystery and meaning. A glimpse of the vast ocean of history and a world beyond her small one.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa

“Did the girls know, the guide asked, that the Mona Lisa was a real woman, one who had lived and breathed and smiled at Leonardo da Vinci himself? That Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, would become an icon, an embodiment of ideal beauty, a symbol of the Italian Renaissance itself? That the man who painted her would become one of the most famous names in history? That the painter captured not just a woman sitting, hands quietly folded, but an entire era in one portrait?”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa