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Italy Quotes

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Italy Quotes

“When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.”

FootballRacismDrinkingLondonSoccerNflFishingRomeItalyForeignersAmerican FootballPubsAlabamaConservativesLiberalsCockneys20102008YuppiesSnobsRio De JaneiroArsenal FcRednecks2010 Fifa World CupSoccer In The United StatesUltimate FightingYobsAuburn AlabamaBass FishingBubbasFootball HooliganismLiberal Elite
Author:Robert Stacy McCain
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“Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra." ("We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.")”

ImportanceItalyGrandeurSelf ImageIllusionsSelf PerceptionSelf CenterednessSicilyLeopardGattopardi
Book:The Leopard
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“Scientists say that the palm tree line, that is the climate suitable to growth of the palm, is moving north, five hundred metres, I think it was, every year...The palm tree line...I call it the coffee line, the strong black coffee line...It's rising like mercury in a thermometer, this palm tree line, this strong coffee line, this scandal line, rising up throughout Italy and already passed Rome...”

ItalySicily
Book:The Day of the Owl
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“There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer.”

ItalyMafiaSicily
Book:To Each His Own
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“…”The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don’t suppose it will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends of Mr. Vyse’s. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest people! For our part we liked them, didn’t we?” He appealed to Lucy. “There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine’s great stories. ‘My dear sister loves flowers,’ it began. They found the whole room a mass of blue — vases and jugs — and the story ends with ‘So ungentlemanly and yet so beautiful.’ It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those Florentine Emersons with violets.”…”

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Book:A Room with a View
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“Giorgia Meloni Prime Minister of Italy says in 2025. Islam is not compatible with western values, This is my reply to her. "Thank you for acknowledging this Giorgia Meloni Prime Minister of Italy. You are right, A religion based on dignity cannot be compatible with a culture that is mother of pornography, culture of narcotics, women abuse, nudity, prostitution, extramarital affairs, human pet, mistress, illegitimate children, old age homes the commodification of women, and hollow values.”

ItalianItalyBest Quotes EverEuropean UnionIslamic QuotesZakiansariquotesZakiashkimCulture QuotesEuropean CultureGiorgia Meloni
Book:"Zaki's Gift Of Love"
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“For fifty years our politicians have worked to create the illusion that there is such a thing as a uniform Italy. The regions were supposed to disappear into the nation, dialects into literary languages. Sicily is the region that has most actively resisted the breaking down of history and freedom. On numerous occasions Sicily has shown itself to be more than a region, and to have a national character of its own.”

ItalyLanguagesSicilySicilian
Author:Antonio Gramsci
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“Borders, though, are rarely as definite as they appear on maps. The longer you spend living around them, the less sense these kinds of simplistic divisions make. Frontiers are places where identities take on absurdly definite forms, in barbed wire fences and vigilante patrols. At the same time, they're places where boundaries between different cultures break down. Sicilian history is white, Christian and Western, certainly, but it has also been, and still is, black, Arab, Muslim among other things. Such ambiguities are present everywhere, but they are particularly visible on the shores of the Mediterranean. This is what makes the region so exciting. It's also what makes it difficult and, for some, uncomfortable.”

ImmigrationBordersItalyImmigrant ExperienceSicilySicilianMediterranean
Book:The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History
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“Thanks to its strong and broadly diffused organizational hubs, the Fasci spread quickly across Sicily. By January 1893 collectives had begun to appear in the island's smallest towns and villages. In the countryside, where less than 15 percent of the population were literate, participants in the movement generally expressed their grievances and demands by appeal to religious icons. During demonstrations, for example, while some participants would chant secular Marxist rhetoric about the need for radical redistribution, others would wield figures of saints and sing patriotic songs. Sometimes these influences even fused in an unlikely manner. Hundreds in the ranks carried crucifixes and candles while, at the same time, arguing that a rich and corrupt clergy had co-opted the fundamental truth of the faith, and that Jesus was an archetype for socialism. The composition of the cells was similarly diverse. Adolfo Rossi, a journalist who covered the revolts for the Roman newspaper La Tribuna, was particularly struck by the extensive female participation. Women, he reported, not only filled the ranks, rejecting their "usual" position in the background, they were leaders too. Girls as young as fifteen years old were on the frontlines of the movement. The single factor that enabled the Fasci to contain such a diverse political constituency within their ranks was the strength of their internal democratic process. Each of the bundles decided their policy proposals and direct actions based on a popular majority vote.”

RevolutionSocialismMarxismItalyPeasantsSicilySiclianFasci Siciliani
Book:The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History
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“The giuggiole, or jujube fruit, resembles an olive and tastes, at first, like a woody apple. After withering off the vine, it takes on a sweeter flavor, closer to a honeyed fig. Among the medieval elite, the fruit was so popular that it gave birth to an idiom: "andare in brodo di giuggiole"--- "To go in jujube broth"--- defined in one of the earliest Italian phrase books as living in a state of bliss. Every fall, the handful of families that still cultivate the fruit in the village gather in medieval garb to celebrate the jujube and feast on the fine liquors, jams, and blissful sweet broth they create from it. Italy is full of places like Arquà Petrarca. Microclimates and artisanal techniques become the basis for obscure local specialties celebrated in elaborate festivals from Trapani to Trieste. In Mezzago, outside Milan, its rare pink asparagus, turned red by soil rich in iron and limited sunlight. Sicily has its Avola almonds and peculiar blood-red oranges, which gain their deep color on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna. Calabria has 'nduja sausage and the Diamante citron, central to the Jewish feast of Sukkot.”

ItalyCropsFruits And VegetablesItalian LanguageJujubesMicroclimate
Book:The Best American Food Writing 2023: Eye-Opening Essays on Culture, Inequality, and Justice
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“But life seemed fuller, more populated than it had a year ago. She went to exhibitions and films, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, and when she’d saved enough of Neil’s money, which was her money, she went on a solo trip to Italy, role-playing a character in a Forster novel. In Florence, she read performatively in cafés and sat in the cool of exquisite churches, straining for some kind of spiritual feeling. In Rome, she visited the Non-Catholic Cemetery and sought out the graves of Keats and Shelley and found herself moved and mortified by being moved.”

Self ImprovementItalySolo Travel
Book:You Are Here
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“An Italian romance may begin in a gondola amid the marvel of Venice, but a traveler looking for the great stories of Italy will board a sailboat amid the gale force of mistral winds, confront the rough seas and warnings of “the insane mountains” that have addled visitors for thousands of years, and then traverse the Strait of Bonifacio in search of Sardinia.”

HistoryTravelItalySardiniaTravel Narrative
Book:In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy
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“In fact, it might be more accurate to speak of “le Sardegne,” as in plural, instead of “la Sardegna,” a singular entity, with a singu- lar culture or set of ways. The “fundamental misunderstanding” in the Mediterranean, as historian Abulafia wrote in The Great Sea, was the illusive search for some sense of unity and clarity in such a place. Instead, he suggested, “we should note diversity,” among the shores in a “constant state of flux.”

HistoryItalyTravelingSardiniaTravel Narrative
Book:In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy
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“One map, titled “Mediterranean without Borders,” by French cartographer Sabine Réthoré, turns our view ninety degrees to the right, the “west” facing up—imagine North Africa to the left and Europe into Turkey to the right with equal stature, the Levant stretching to Egypt at the bottom, and the Rock of Gibraltar at top. Our perspective shifts, the Mediterranean Sea unfolding almost like a lake, the shores mirroring each other along these ancient corridors dotted by islands and waterways. It’s a busy thoroughfare. The Mediterranean is “probably the most vigorous place of interaction,” as eminent historian David Abulafia observed, “between different societies on the face of this planet.” There in the upper reaches, the island of Sardinia sits in the middle, a focal point of entry and inspection. Instead of being on the periphery of empires or a nebulous island west of the Italian mainland, Sardinia is central to the Mediterranean story and a nexus for navigators heading in any direction. The idea of isolation, as one medieval historian would note, no longer appears “tenable.”

HistoryTravelMapsItalySardiniaTravel Narrative
Book:In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy
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“The second map is of Sardinia itself: the main island with its many islets. It is not a floating green mountain with a defining valley that splices along the south by southwest, as a topographical map would show. Instead, this map is as colorful as a neon strip of nightlife you might download on a cell phone for the latest cultural events. In fact, devised as a geoportal and online app by a volunteer organization called Nurnet in 2013, the map pinpoints the thousands of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments across the islands with the fanfare of an open museum. As part of Nurnet’s mission to “promote a different image of Sardinia in the world,” the map is nothing less than astounding. If you actually illuminated all of these ancient monuments, from the Neolithic array of Stonehenge-like dolmens and menhir stone formations to the thousands of burial tombs, Bronze Age towers and complexes called nuraghes or nuraghi, the entire island would light up like a prehistoric hotspot. The vastness of the uninterrupted cycles of civilizations and their architectural marvels still standing today would be incomparable with any place in Europe on that first Mediterranean map. The Sardinians call it the “endless museum.”

HistoryTravelMapsItalySardinia
Book:In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy
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“While Sardinian authors, like Giuseppe Cossu in 1799, had been lamenting the oversight of the island’s history and “unfaithful geo- graphic maps” for centuries, there still seemed to be a lingering nar- rative of historical ambivalence, as if the island had been an empty stage until the arrival of Phoenicians and Romans; as if Sardinians had no ancient civilization or role in their own destiny—or, more importantly, as if they had no role in shaping Italy and the worlds be- yond their island. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were missing the most vital parts of the island and its history; that perhaps we needed to understand Sardinia if we were to truly understand the rest of Italy.”

HistoryTravelItalySardiniaMediterranean
Book:In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy
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“Our holidays began here in Catania, this loud, bustling city pulsing with memories. I know these scenes, like a movie once adored and now almost forgotten. I know the large square lava-stone pavers that line the footpaths. I can smell salty, fishy air coming from the fish market I think is just down the far end of the square. I remember this intense heat, the sea breeze flowing like water between the buildings, down the alleyways, never quite cooling enough.”

MemorableItalySicilyCatania
Book:Just One Taste
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“La baronessa fece chiamare la sua vettura. Nel frattempo estrasse dal corsetto le mammelle e quando arrivò il cocchiere le fece sbattere ironicamente in aria, come due colombe d'argento, trattenendole con le mani perché non pigliassero il volo. -Fossero almeno tre- disse con voce roca il cocchiere, stringendo la frusta. Con una risatina, anch'essa d'argento, la baronessa salì sulla vettura e il cocchiere se la portò via, verso un altro romanzo, di successo.”

HumorNonsenseItaly
Author:WILCOCK J. Rodolfo -
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“The need for certainty, homogeneity, rationalization and good road traffic organization, as well as the need to clearly identify the areas of an urban centre, took a back seat in respect to prevailing nationalization, driven by the need to reduce minorities and to make the State's cultural structure almost monistic. Toponymy became a cultural asset, inevitably losing its function as a "historical turnaround, or scientific furnishings that might be compared, in the order of physical events, to the different deposits studied by geologists".”

ItalyItalian HistoryEthnic MinoritiesNationalizationToponymyNational MinoritiesRisorgimento
Book:Topographical Names and Protection of Linguistic Minorities
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“At worst, the centralizing effort to remove, where possible, homonymy — and antinomy — of a Peninsula that had always been subdivided into local communities and tiny States, gave vent to an unrestrained toponymical revision, that binned millennial heritage in the name of celebratory intentions, patriotic Risorgimental evocations and moralistic efforts. The two-year period that follows Unification can be defined as a period characterized by "a sort of gutting of street names, which ... disfigured to a certain degree the topographic structure of build-up areas", redrawing streets and squares, choosing heroes and models and consciously ignoring others.”

NationalismItalyNational ConsciousnessItalian HistoryToponymyRisorgimentoHistory Of ItalyItalian Nationalism
Book:Topographical Names and Protection of Linguistic Minorities
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“[General William Donovan] wanted to see the beachhead, already nearly two weeks old, to smell powder, to sleep in a fox-hole and eat K-rations. Instead he found our outfit luxuriously installed in the Hotel Luna within rifle-shot of the fighting. Don Antonio, the proprietor, was prowling into no-man's land for good fresh Mozarella cheese. We had, all ninety of us, fresh sheets on our beds. The chambermaids wore spotless uniforms; the waiters served us in dinner jackets. The General was disappointed. He mumbled something about this being a hellova way to fight a war, and added a footnote about congressional investigations. Major John Roller suggested digging him a foxhole under the mimosa tree in the rose garden, but no one quite dared offer to do it.”

World War IiItalyUs ArmyOssAmalfiItalian CampaignWild Bill Donovan
Book:The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage
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