314 Quotes About Italy

I notice that nowadays few drivers in Rome automatically stop for you unless you have the courage to stride forward, arm outstretched, palm up in a dorky “stop-right-now” gesture. Another Roman habit that takes getting used to is that in many areas of town, such as Trastevere where I live, people seem to prefer walking in the street even when sidewalks, however narrow, exist. They seem convinced they are invincible and often don’t even look before crossing the street.

My friend Mimmo, who owns three men’s shops in Rome but who comes from Naples where his father was in the same business, says that nowadays, after two days in Naples, he can’t wait to leave again. “Life in Rome is not easy, but at least there are some certainties. In Naples, forget it. The only thing that counts there is prepotenza,” roughly, bullying or arrogance.

Indeed, don’t be surprised to find yourself in a taxi in which the right-side window doesn’t work or is missing its wind-down handle. The driver has done this deliberately to keep himself from getting a draft on his neck that will give him problems al cervicale, the cervical spine. He is also likely to eschew air conditioning on the grounds that it will give him pneumonia.

No matter where I've been overseas, the greatest joy was moving into Italy. Italy has changed me, for the better.

Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism — that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners.

The mountains in the background were cut from the same cloth as the sky: a slightly darker shade, that was the only difference. Had we the capacity to analyse it there would almost certainly be a geology of the air as well as of rock.

We apply the catechism by opening Italy's doors to women and children who come here legally on aeroplanes, but no more men on rubber dinghies. We will help them grow up and work in their own countries. Let's spend in Africa the money that needs to be spent.

I'm a federalist. I believe in the Italy of municipalities, of the Renaissance, not in Mussolini's centralization.

Quando una donna ha bisogno di un uomo, la chiamano amore. Quando un uomo ha bisogno di una donna, lo chiamano comportamento inappropriato