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Sicily Quotes

Browse 56 quotes about Sicily.

Sicily Quotes

“By first light, immigrants haul crates of melons and buckets of ice over the narrow cobblestone streets. Old men sell salted capers and branches of wild oregano while the young ones build their fish stands, one silvery torqued body at a time, like an edible art installation. It's a startling scene: gruff young palermitani, foul-mouthed and wreathed in cigarette smoke, lovingly laying out each fish at just the right angle, burrowing its belly into the ice as if to mimic its swimming position in the ocean. Sicilian sun and soil and ingenuity have long produced some of Italy's most prized raw ingredients, and the colors of the market serve as a map of the island's agricultural prowess: the forest green pistachios of Bronte; the Crayola-bright lemons and oranges of Paternò; the famous pomodorini of Pachino, fiery orbs of magical tomato intensity.”

“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.")”

“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...”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“But you don't come to Palermo to stay in minimalist hotels and eat avocado toast; you come to Palermo to be in Palermo, to drink espressos as dark and thick as crude oil, to eat tangles of toothsome spaghetti bathed in buttery sea urchins, to wander the streets at night, feeling perfectly charmed on one block, slightly concerned on the next. To get lost. After a few days, you learn to turn down one street because it smells like jasmine and honeysuckle in the morning; you learn to avoid another street because in the heat of the afternoon the air is thick with the suggestion of swordfish three days past its prime.”

“The calm skies that drifted above us lulled us into thinking this traversée would be smooth, but after several hours, the unsteady sea had taken its toll on me and after a light lunch and a brief swim in the open sea failed to do so, I attempted to remedy my mal de mer with rest. When I awoke, the sun had already set and the cool air and soft light of twilight helped recalibrate my disoriented thoughts. Although my seasickness had subsided, I lay starboard side facing the heavens - that were now a deep shade of purple - so as to not provoke another episode. We set to anchoring behind several large volcanic pillars just a stone’s-throw away from where the Tyrrhenian Sea kissed the east of the island. A handful of wishes scattered the skies as we approached the shores of Aci Trezza. As these stars traced their dying song across the void above, part of me felt ashamed for even entertaining the notion of wishing upon a star, but that voice was speedily silenced by words He had once shared with me in Scotland: “There is always some truth to fiction.”

“Taormina sits on a natural platform above the coast, its small streets and tiny staircases climbing to the summit of Mount Tauro, where an ancient Greek theater looks out across the sea. Stunning views aside, its coral-colored stone houses with wrought-iron balconies climb above elegant piazzas lined with cafés and filled with people. Deep green bushes with their bright pink flowers seem to grow everywhere, straight from the baking-hot stone. The town is beautiful, the pearl of the Ionian Sea, recently made famous by the show The White Lotus.”

“Il tempo stava cambiando. Nuvoloni grigi spuntavano minacciosi dietro la cerchia dei monti alle spalle della città; lì il cielo era livido. Una grossa nuvola coprì il sole e la terrazza si oscurò all'improvviso. Il barone sollevò gli occhi malati e li puntò su Monte Pellegrino. Lo vedeva sfocato in lontananza, stagliato contro il cielo: ma il monte aveva già cambiato colore. Nuove sfumature - blu, viola - lo rendevano austero e minaccioso. Quella montagna dalle proporzioni perfette e dalla solida bellezza era il guardiano del golfo: una mitica fiera accovacciata e immersa a metà nel mare - groppa e gambe emergevano nelle loro forme angolose -, ma pronta a trarsi dal sonno e a drizzarsi contro chi osasse avvicinarsi alla città. Domenico Safamita amava Palermo d'una passione quasi fisica. "Si distruggono monasteri, palazzi, si sventrano quartieri. Non importa che manchi l'acqua, che le fognature siano rudimentali o inesistenti, che il popolino viva in tuguri e muoia di fame e malattie: i palermitani vogliono un nuovo grandioso teatro lirico. Sempre più bella e più abietta, mai come ora Palermo si rivela magnifica e compiaciuta di aver mantenuto la sua identità di città superlativamente cortigiana. A Palermo anche le pietre sudano sensualità." Sulla sinistra la nuova strada, larghissima, finiva a mare. Lì sembrava essere calata la notte e l'acqua era cosparsa di puntini luccicanti: le prime lampare dei pescatori. La nuvola scivolò dal sole e tutto ritornò come prima: il mare era una macchia scura senza bagliori, Monte Pellegrino, appena rosato, si stagliava netto e benigno.”

“For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own. This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind.”

“The island of Sicily is the largest in the Mediterranean. It has also proved, over the centuries, to be the most unhappy. The stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, the link between the Latin world and the Greek, at once a stronghold, observation-point and clearing-house, it has been fought over and occupied in turn by all the great powers that have at various times striven to extend their dominion across the Middle Sea. It has belonged to them all—and yet has properly been part of none; for the number and variety of its conquerors, while preventing the development of any strong national individuality of its own, have endowed it with a kaleidoscopic heritage of experience which can never allow it to become completely assimilated. Even today, despite the beauty of its landscape, the fertility of its fields and the perpetual benediction of its climate, there lingers everywhere some dark, brooding quality—some underlying sorrow of which poverty, Church influence, the Mafia and all the other popular modern scapegoats may be the manifestations but are certainly not the cause. It is the sorrow of long, unhappy experience, of opportunity lost and promise unfulfilled; the sorrow, perhaps, of a beautiful woman who has been raped too often and betrayed too often and is no longer fit for love or marriage. Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, Spaniards, French—all have left their mark. Today, a century after being received into her Italian home, Sicily is probably less unhappy than she has been for many centuries; but though no longer lost she still seems lonely, seeking always an identity which she can never entirely find.”

“Costanza non capiva sino in fondo, ma non poneva domande, tanto le piacevano quelle passeggiate in carrozza, seduta orgogliosa accanto al fratello maggiore, su e giù per il lungomare. Da un lato c'erano i grandi palazzi nobiliari con le loro terrazze lussureggianti. Sul marciapiede gremito di gente benvestita per la passeggiata si aprivano i caffè della Marina, davanti ai quali si fermavano le carrozze per il gelato. La strada costeggiava il mare limpido, tranquillo, su cui si rifletteva a occidente, magnifico, il lare protettore: Monte Pellegrino. I camerieri li servivano in carrozza. Si facevano strada in mezzo ai clienti seduti ai tavolini e alla gente che passeggiava davanti a loro tenendo in bilico sul braccio teso in alto, sulle teste dei passanti, grandi vassoi rotondi con sopra bicchieri d'acqua e coppette di metallo argentato piene di gelato rasato al bordo. Su ognuna era infilzato un biscotto tubolare, croccante. Costanza era golosa: assaporava con voluttà persino l'acqua dolce e rinfrescante, che sorbiva a piccoli sorsi dopo il gelato.”

“Ma gli altri, tutti quegli altri ragazzi a cui il «miracolo» di Anastasi ha dato un simbolo, un barlume di speranza, un anelito nuovo? Potranno almeno sperare di tenergli dietro e di vincere la vita, non sulle sole vie dello sport? Saremo un giorno anche noi come gli altri, in una società più civile, più larga di stimoli e di possibilità? Se un giorno lo saremo, se ogni piccolo siciliano potrà partire sulla stessa linea del suo fratello di Milano o di Verona, e non sembrerà più un miracolo che riesca, vorrà dire che avremo inteso sino in fondo che cosa vale e che cosa significa la favola dolce-amara del ragazzo che se ne andò dalla sua modesta casetta e fece tremare l'Olimpico. – dalla prefazione di Luigi Prestinenza, "Brividi all'Olimpico”

“Although Sicily in July can be a furnace, there can be cool nights by the sea, and up in the hills of Mount Etna. I allow myself to feel a tantalizing hope we might head up there. There is something thrilling about the pull of the volcano towering over the Sicilian coastline, constantly puffing steam and fiery red ash like a sleeping dragon, while farmers and villagers quietly live and work, aware that she can wake at any moment.”

“My first encounter with the bittersweet taste of the Moro, a Sicilian blood orange, was sitting outside under a gnarled olive tree, during the height of a June heat wave. Small puffs of cloud the only blemish in the otherwise perfect blue sky, the bloodred flesh yielding a juice so refreshing it felt as close to perfect as I've ever come. The second encounter came at a fish market in Catania, where a group of men in flat caps spooned red-orange mounds of Moro granita into their mouths between games of cards. I was back in my dad's world, and the memories of oranges were everywhere.”

“Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina. I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me. Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella. And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself. Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion. Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option! Leo. I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.”

“You texted Garcia for help?" Jack gritted out. "Garcia? Not me?" "He has a gun." "So do I." "He's steady and reliable," I said. "He doesn't disappear for eight months. He doesn't go on business trips that require burner phones and secret codes. He doesn't refuse to tell me what he does for a living. I texted HELP and I knew he'd come. I wasn't sure about you." "You don't think I would have come if you'd texted me for help?" Indignation laced Jack's tone. "For all I knew, you were being tossed out a window in Rio, tortured by the Italian Mafia in Tuscany, or you were in the North Sea trapped in a Russian submarine." "The Italian Mafia are based in Sicily," he corrected me. "Tuscany doesn't have the port access they need for the drug trade." I folded my arms and sighed. "You missed the point entirely.”

“It was an overcast day, but the cloudy weather did not detract from the signs of spring that were evident all around them. It was the second week in March, and the official start of the season was just a couple of weeks away. The magnolia trees had already bloomed, and tulips, daffodils, and wildflowers were shooting up all around the convent's gardens.”

“One encounters in the streets, late at night on the evenings of fetes, the most strange and bizarre passers-by. Do these nights of popular celebration cause ancient and forgotten avatars to stir in the depths of the human soul? This evening, in the movement of the sweaty and excited crowd, I am certain that I passed between the masks of the liberated Bythinians and encountered the courtesans of the Roman decadence. There emerged, this evening, from that swarming esplanade of Des Invalides - amid the crackle of fireworks, the shooting stars, the stink of frying, the hiccuping of drunkards and the reeking atmosphere of menageries - the wild effusions of one of Nero's festivals. It was like the odour of a May evening on the Basso-Porto of Naples. It was easy to believe that the faces in that crowd were Sicilian.”

“Culturally, however, Sicily had great advantages. Muslim, Byzantine, Italian, and German civilization met and mingled there as nowhere else. Greek and Arabic were still living languages in Sicily. Frederick learnt to speak six languages fluently, and in all six he was witty. He was at home in Arabian philosophy, and had friendly relations with Mohammedans, which scandalized pious Christians. He was a Hohenstaufen, and in Germany could count as a German. But in culture and sentiment he was Italian, with a tincture of Byzantine and Arab. His contemporaries gazed upon him with astonishment gradually turning into horror; they called him ‘wonder of the world and marvellous innovator’.”

“Limpid water lapped at her legs, and Georgia wriggled her tocsin the silky sand beneath her feet. If she squinted hard enough, she swore she could make out the African coast shimmering in the distance- Tunisia? Algeria? She swished her hands through the water, startling a school of yellow fish who darted past her knee. A cerulean sky loomed above her, a blanket of white-sand beach stretched behind her. The scene had all the trappings of a Harlequin novel: the exotic Sicilian locale, the deserted beach, the bikini-clad heroine. All that was missing was the hunky stud who would stride out of the water Fabio-style, pecs rippling, long hair cascading down his back.”

“All of this could fall flat, feel too much like a caricature of a Sicilian trattoria, if the food itself weren't so damn good: arancini, saffron-scented rice fried into crunchy, greaseless golf balls; polpette di pesce spada, swordfish meatballs with a taste so deep and savory they might as well be made of dry-aged beef; and a superlative version of caponata di melanzane, that ubiquitous Sicilian starter of eggplant, capers, and various other vegetation, stewed into a sweet and savory jam that you will want to smear on everything. Everything around you screams Italy, but those flavors on the end of the fork? The sweet-and-sour tandem, the stain of saffron, the grains of rice: pure Africa. The pasta: even better. Chewy noodles tinted jet black with squid ink and tossed with sautéed rings and crispy legs of calamari- a sort of nose-to-tail homage to the island's cherished cephalopod. And Palermo's most famous dish, pasta con le sarde, a bulge of thick spaghetti strewn with wild fennel, capers, raisins, and, most critically, a half dozen plump sardines slow cooked until they melt into a briny ocean ragù. Sweet, salty, fatty, funky- Palermo in a single bite.”

“I was witnessing another example of the way community functioned so tightly here, for better or for worse. Each of the women on this street will be called upon and expected to participate in the illness or death of the others. They held one another up, it was a custom as ancient and alive as the ruins of Sicily's Harrah temple.”

“Sotto quelle fronde hanno camminato i fenici forse, mi si dice siano stati loro a dare il nome a Bagheria da una parola fenicia Bayaria, che significa ritorno, così mi dicono ma è difficile sapere qual è la verità. Le etimologie sono a volte misteriose. Sotto quelle fronde hanno camminato anche i greci e i latini. E infine gli arabi dal piede leggero e le vesti lunghe, di cotone ricamato. Gli arabi hanno portato in Sicilia il baco da seta, l'ulivo e il fico d'India. Gli Spagnoli, assieme ai loro cavalli e ai loro guerrieri, la coltivazione dell'arancio dolce, mentre gli Aragonesi hanno insegnato la coltivazione della canna da zucchero.”

“Ancora oggi a Bagheria si fanno dei gelati squisiti, piccoli fiori di cioccolata ripieni di pasta gelata molle e profumata, al gelsomino, alla menta, alla fragola, al cocco. Per non parlare del più tradizionale “gelo di mellone” che non è un gelato come sembra ma una gelatina di cocomero dal colore corallino disseminata di semi di cioccolato. E che dire del “gelato di campagna” che è una specie di torrone di zucchero dai colori delicati, il cui gusto al pistacchio si mescola a quello della mandorla e della vaniglia?L'ultima volta che ho mangiato i dolci di Bagheria ero in visita a villa Valguarnera in visita a zia Saretta che poi è morta lasciando la villa e tutte le ricchezze ai gesuiti, con grande dispiacere degli eredi di sangue. I quali hanno infatti subito impugnato il testamento. I gesuiti, molto saggiamente, hanno pensato che una villa così monumentale è difficile da mantenere, avrebbe procurato più grane che altro, più spese che comodità e se ne sono lavate le mani. Nel frattempo, i ladri sono entrati e hanno portato via tutto, perfino le statue del giardino.”

“Di mafia non si parlava mai allora, tutti sapevano che esisteva una forza maligna capace di imporre la sua volontà col coltello e col fucile. Ma chi stringesse quel coltello e chi imbracciasse quel fucile era difficile dirlo. D'altronde, per chi lo sapeva, era meglio fare finta di non averlo mai saputo. I maggiorenti del paese, signori che giravano per i marciapiedi in giacca di pigiama col cappello a larghe falde in testa, negavano che esistesse questa mafia. E quando pronunciavano la parola, piegavano le labbra in giù, come per sputare. Portavano le mani all'aria e dicevano ridacchiando: favole sunnu… roba per turisti… E con questo il paese si richiudeva nella sua vita quotidiana, fatta di soprusi, di sofferenze, di torti subiti in silenzio, di cose taciute e mai dette, come fosse il più felice dei paesi.”

“The gardens at Acquasanta was the nearest place to paradise that I had ever seen. Well-trimmed palm trees and sweet-smelling pines were interspersed with fruit trees bearing oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and kumquats. The branches bowed down under the weight of the golden fruit. Low box hedges bordered the flower gardens. There were cornflowers and sweet peas and arum lilies. Terra cotta pots the size of men trailed trains of ivy and overflowed with pink geraniums.”

“This is where I come to eat lunch most days. The café is generally quiet and cool. It's across the road from the beach, which is rocky and met by the pale green, glittering sea. The caféiss't pretty or fancy; the food's simple and traditional. Some days the cook is late and they serve only what the man at the bar can grill or fry- whole fish, the silver scales marked with charred black lines, and home-cut potato fries. On very hot days, I order gelato brioche or granita.”

“Palermo is dotted everywhere with frittura shacks- street carts and storefronts specializing in fried foods of all shapes and cardiac impacts. On the fringes of the Ballarò market are bars serving pane e panelle, fried wedges of mashed chickpeas combined with potato fritters and stuffed into a roll the size of a catcher's mitt. This is how the vendors start their days; this is how you should start yours, too. If fried chickpea sandwiches don't register as breakfast food, consider an early evening at Friggitoria Chiluzzo, posted on a plastic stool with a pack of locals, knocking back beers with plates of fried artichokes and arancini, glorious balls of saffron-stained rice stuffed with ragù and fried golden- another delicious ode to Africa. Indeed, frying food is one of the favorite pastimes of the palermitani, and they do it- as all great frying should be done- with a mix of skill and reckless abandon. Ganci is among the city's most beloved oil baths, a sliver of a store offering more calories per square foot than anywhere I've ever eaten. You can smell the mischief a block before you hit the front door: pizza topped with french fries and fried eggplant, fried rice balls stuffed with ham and cubes of mozzarella, and a ghastly concoction called spiedino that involves a brick of béchamel and meat sauce coated in bread crumbs and fried until you could break someone's window with it.”