Women politicians in Italy

"The first thought a Western woman has when she arrives in a rigorously Muslim country like Pakistan is that she appears to be the only woman to have survived a tsunami that has washed away all the others."

"What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives."

"People like me who have passion are derided: 'Ha ha ha! She's hysterical!' 'She's very passionate!' Listen how the Americans speak about me: 'A very passionate Italian.'"

"Americans," she said, repeating for me something she told the , "you have taught me this stupid word: cool. Cool, cool, cool! Coolness, coolness, you've got to be cool. Coolness! When I speak like I speak now, with passion, you smile and laugh at me! I've got passion. They've got passion. They have such passion and such guts that they are ready to die for it."

"Our weakness in the West is born of the fact of so-called "objectivity." Objectivity does not exist. The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No, sir: Sometimes truth stays on one side only."

"Europe is no longer Europe, it is Eurabia, a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense."

"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon... I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

"If you put a pistol against my head and ask which I think is worse, Muslims or Mexicans, I'd have to think a moment, then I'd say the Muslims because they've broken my balls."

"It's been four years since I spoke about Islamic Nazism, the war with the West, the cult of death, the suicide of Europe. A Europe which is no longer Europe but Eurabia, which with its softness, its inertia, its creed and its enslavement to the enemy, is digging his own grave. (Sono quattr' anni che parlo di nazismo islamico, di guerra all' Occidente, di culto della morte, di suicidio dell' Europa. Un' Europa che non è più Europa ma Eurabia e che con la sua mollezza, la sua inerzia, la sua cecità, il suo asservimento al nemico si sta scavando la propria tomba.)"

"Europe is no longer Europe, it is Eurabia, a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense... I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. There must be some human truth that is beyond religion... I am disgusted by the anti-Semitism of many Italians, of many Europeans... Look at the school system of the West today. Students do not know history! They don't know who Churchill was! In Italy, they don't even know who Cavour was!... Servility to the invaders has poisoned democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and for the concept itself of liberty... State-run television stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones... The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom... The Muslims refuse our culture and try to impose their culture on us. I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture-it is toward my values, my principles, my civilization... The struggle for freedom does not include the submission to a religion which, like the Muslim religion, wants to annihilate other religions... The West reveals a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive... These charlatans care about the Palestinians as much as I care about the charlatans. That is not at all... When I was given the news, I laughed. The trial is nothing else but a demonstration that everything I've written is true... President Bush has said, 'We refuse to live in fear.'...Beautiful sentence, very beautiful. I loved it! But inexact, Mr. President, because the West does live in fear. People are afraid to speak against the Islamic world. Afraid to offend, and to be punished for offending, the sons of Allah. You can insult the Christians, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Jews. You can slander the Catholics, you can spit on the Madonna and Jesus Christ. But, woe betide the citizen who pronounces a word against the Islamic religion."

"The problem is that the solution does not depend upon the death of Osama bin Laden. Because the Osama bin Ladens are too many, by now: as cloned as the sheep of our research laboratories. In fact, the best trained and the more intelligent do not stay in the Muslim countries... They stay in our own countries, in our cities, our universities, our business companies. They have excellent bonds with our churches, our banks, our televisions, our radios, our newspapers, our publishers, our academic organizations, our unions, our political parties. Worse, they live in the heart of a society that hosts them without questioning their differences, without checking their bad intentions, without penalizing their sullen fanaticism."

"This too famous, too important, too lucky man, whom they call Superman, Superstar, Superkraut, and who stitches together paradoxical alliances, reaches impossible agreements, keeps the world holding its breath as though the world were his students at Harvard."

"Among today's Italians, when treading upon Haile Selassie's memory, the sense of guilt and shame is such that they react by seeing only his positive traits: the merits of his past actions. His portrayals always brim with excessive deferance, unwarranted admiration and delusion. They go on and on about his priestly composure, his regal dignity, his great intelligence and his generosity towards former adversaries. They never explain who this sovereign, who we made into a victim, really was. They never dare tell us if he was something more, or less, than a victim. For example, that he was an old man hardened in principles which were centuries out of date; that he was the absolute ruler of a nation which has never heard the words rights and democracy, which lives in a near prehistoric fashion in the suburbs, oppressed by hunger, disease, ignorance and the squallor of a feudal regime which even we did not experience during the darkest years of the Medieval period."

"Hearing him speak is so fun, reassuring I dare say. You can say all you like about Sihanouk: that he's an atrocious liar, a madman, a fraud, a swashbuckler, an international blot. You may think that, but you cannot deny how in this age in which the political arena seems to generate only dull, obtuse and boring characters with no imagination, he's a kind of miracle."

"Maybe they [women who were executed by the Taliban] were guilty of the worst of all crimes: to laugh. Yes. Laughing. I said laughter. Didn't you know that with the Taliban in Afghanistan women can't laugh, that they are even forbidden to laugh?."

"To make you cry I’ll tell you about the twelve young impure men I saw executed at Dacca at the end of the Bangladesh war. They executed them on the field of Dacca stadium, with bayonet blows to the torso or abdomen, in the presence of twenty thousand faithful who applauded in the name of God from the bleachers. They thundered "Allah akbar, Allah akbar." Yes, I know: the ancient Romans, those ancient Romans of whom my culture is so proud, entertained themselves in the Coliseum by watching the deaths of Christians fed to the lions. I know, I know: in every country of Europe the Christians, those Christians whose contribution to the History of Thought I recognize despite my atheism, entertained themselves by watching the burning of heretics. But a lot of time has passed since then, we have become a little more civilized, and even the sons of Allah ought to have figured out by now that certain things are just not done. After the twelve impure young men they killed a little boy who had thrown himself at the executioners to save his brother who had been condemned to death. They smashed his head with their combat boots. And if you don’t believe it, well, reread my report or the reports of the French and German journalists who, horrified as I was, were there with me. Or better: look at the photographs that one of them took. Anyway this isn’t even what I want to underline. It’s that, at the conclusion of the slaughter, the twenty thousand faithful (many of whom were women) left the bleachers and went down on the field. Not as a disorganized mob, no. In an orderly manner, with solemnity. They slowly formed a line and, again in the name of God, walked over the cadavers. All the while thundering Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. They destroyed them like the Twin Towers of New York. They reduced them to a bleeding carpet of smashed bones."

"I am not speaking, obviously, to the laughing hyenas who enjoy seeing images of the wreckage and snicker good–it–serves–the–Americans–right. I am speaking to those who, though not stupid or evil, are wallowing in prudence and doubt. And to them I say: "Wake up, people. Wake up!!" Intimidated as you are by your fear of going against the current—that is, appearing racist (a word which is entirely inapt as we are speaking not about a race but about a religion)—you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a reverse–Crusade is in progress. Accustomed as you are to the double–cross, blinded as you are by myopia, you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a war of religion is in progress. Desired and declared by a fringe of that religion, perhaps, but a war of religion nonetheless. A war which they call Jihad. Holy War. A war that might not seek to conquer our territory, but that certainly seeks to conquer our souls. That seeks the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization. That seeks to annihilate our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves. You don’t understand or don’t want to understand that if we don’t oppose them, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win. And it will destroy the world that for better or worse we’ve managed to build, to change, to improve, to render a little more intelligent, that is to say, less bigoted—or even not bigoted at all. And with that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morals, our values, our pleasures...Christ! Don’t you realize that the Osama Bin Ladens feel authorized to kill you and your children because you drink wine or beer, because you don’t wear your beard long or a chador, because you go to the theater or the movies, because you listen to music and sing pop songs, because you dance in discos or at home, because you watch TV, wear miniskirts or short–shorts, because you go naked or half naked to the beach or the pool, because you *** when you want and where you want and who you want? Don’t you even care about that, you fools? I am an atheist, thank God. And I have no intention of letting myself be killed for it."

"There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape."

"I have informed myself better about Buddhism and I found that, unlike Muslims, with their an-eye-for-an-eye and a-tooth-for-a-tooth, and unlike Christians who speak of forgiveness but invented Hell, Buddhists never use the word "enemy". I have found that they have never made converts with violence, they have never made territorial conquests through the pretext of religion, and they don't have the concept of Holy War. Some deny this. They deny that Buddhism is a peaceful religion... Each family includes people of bad character. But even they recognize that the bad character of those warrior monks was not used to proselytize, and admit that the history of Buddhism does not record a ferocious Saladin or popes like Leo IX or Urban II or Innocent II or Pius II or Julius II... Yet the children of Allah also fight the Buddhists. They blow up their statues, they prevent them from practising their religion."

"My heart is also tightening for the way in which they have killed them [the Buddhas of Bamiyan]... They have not acted with the irrationality and bestiality of the Chinese Maoists who destroyed Lhasa in 1951, broke into monasteries and into the palace of the Dalai Lama and like drunken buffalo razed to the ground the monuments of a civilization... The destruction of Lhasa was not preceded by a trial... But in the case of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, there was a real process. There was a real sentence, then an execution was decided based on legal norms or presumed legal norms. It was therefore, a premeditated crime."

"Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam. And Italy is an outpost of that province, a stronghold of that colony...In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Quran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism."

"I also saw the cement-quarry where a couple of days earlier the Muslims had massacred eight hundred Hindus. Many women included. And where their corpses lay abandoned to the appetite of the vultures. Hundreds and hundreds of vultures unrolling long paper-streamers which were not paper-streamers: they were the Hindu bowels torn out by their beaks and carried up in the sky. Yes, I rediscovered that world in Dacca."

"The editor of Il Foglio, [Giuliano Ferrara], is so blinded by his neoconservative ideology that he fails to realise that by promoting Oriana Fallaci's crude anti-Islamic racism, he is paving the way for all other forms of racism and, sooner or later, for a resurgence of anti-Semitism, which will be very difficult to combat if anti-Islamic racism has been endorsed."

"Fallaci is a great journalist for the same reason she is a mediocre novelist. She is an enormous, protruding uterus that embraces a wide swath of reality. But what she gains in breadth when she writes articles, she loses in depth when she writes books."

"With Oriana Fallaci's demise at 77 from a host of cancers, in September, in her beloved Florence, there also died something of the art of the interview. Her absolutely heroic period was that of the 1970s, probably the last chance we had of staving off the complete triumph of celebrity culture."

"Ever since the secret trip to China, my own relationship with Nixon had grown complicated. Until then I had been an essentially anonymous White House assistant. But now his associates were unhappy, and not without reason, that some journalists were giving me perhaps excessive credit for the more appealing aspects of our foreign policy while blaming Nixon for the unpopular moves. . These tendencies were given impetus by an interview I granted to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, without doubt the single most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press. I saw her briefly on Nov. 2 and 4, 1972, in my office. I did so largely out of vanity. She had interviewed leading personalities all over the world. Fame was sufficiently novel for me to be flattered by the company I would be keeping. I had not bothered to read her writings; her evisceration of other victims was thus unknown to me. I paid the price for my naiveté. The quotes ascribed to me, statements of marginal taste gathered together in what she presented as a conversation, were the most self-serving utterances of my entire public career."

"Even though you are on the blacklist of my authorities, I'll add you to the whitelist of my heart."

"Who is this woman? Where does she come from? What does she want? Enough, go away, ça suffit! ça suffit!!"

"L’Europeo considers her its star reporter. She covers the Indo-Pakistani War and the Maoist uprising in Hong Kong. Then she travels to the Middle East to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to South America to write about guerrilla groups fighting against various dictatorships. She quickly becomes famous for her courage and her combative spirit. A colleague remembers: “During the war between India and Pakistan, while we were following the Sikh troops and the Gurkhas, she took a different route. She got on a rickety boat and sailed up the Brahmaputra and arrived in Dacca at the moment the dictator’s troops were killing their prisoners and burying them in common graves. Some were still alive. She made such a fuss that it was a miracle they didn’t shoot her.”"

"Oriana Fallaci is not only a great journalist: for me she is "the" journalism. And I underline "is" (wasn't) for many reasons. One of which lies in the fact that its pages will long remain the best school of journalism, but above all a formidable breath of intellectual freedom, a vaccine against all idiots, variously placed in the hierarchies of power, and against the lazy cowardice of conformism."

"(Concerning Antonio Di Pietro) He is the only true national leader, the authentic expression of civil society."

"Bruno Vespa is just like my grandfather, he has a distinctive feature of the Mussolini family: the line from his nostril to his mouth. Sooner or later he will come out."

"Hey Matteo, you're nosy, you wear an earring and you're jealous. Wash your mouth out before you speak. You're a beggar, so don't bother us!"

"(Referred to Luxuria) He dresses like a woman and thinks he can say whatever he wants. Better a fascist than a faggot!"

"Enough with sex and sexuality, everyone is as fluid as they want. You want to see me become fluid too?"

"Monica Cirinnà? Long live Cirinnà. She did well to display that sign saying “God, Country and Family”. But deep down it's true: life is “shit” because there are crazy constraints. In Italy, we are too conditioned. Cirinnà is a bit like the Emma Bonino of our times. If it weren't for Bonino, we women would still be under the thumb. With a noose around our necks. You've had enough, long live to Bonino, long live to Cirinnà."

"I am a Mussolini, but I believe in democracy."

"(Referring to Claude Juncker) Who is this Juncker guy?! He looks like a yoghurt to me!"

"I work with the people in the piazza, where there is reality. Here in Parliament, often there is a mystification of reality. They are not representatives of the people. They represent themselves and their own interests."

"If the situation is resolved, the Lega [Nord] will disappear."

"In life we all change: on the basis of our experiences, of things that happen. Talking to my kids, I understood that for [them], sexual orientation isn't even a topic: it's like putting on a dress that you can change, and nobody cares what it's like."

"My grandfather is the greatest of them all; I will continue to believe this all my life."

"Not only Gianfranco Fini, but the entire world, including the Vatican and the pope, should beg forgiveness of Israel."

"Once again Italy needs a strong man. With my grandfather, at least there was a stand, a sense of responsibility, common sense and a love for Italy which is no more."

"The National Alliance is no longer to the right, it is in the centre. There is a huge space in the society of the right for me to occupy. For the first time a woman is the leader of a political party [in Italy]."

"What does seeing a bit of music, a bit of Pride [Parade], a bit of freedom take away from you? Lock yourself up at home, take a Bible and read it."

"Why are they afraid of the young people who have discovered their country and their flag and the outstretched arm salute? This is not nostalgia but regrets for bygone days that have taught much about ideals and honesty and even about morality."

"Women in politics are too obedient. On the left they are really obedient, they don't believe in themselves. We are very, very few. And some of us don't want to go up against the leader of the party. But sometimes you have to say what you have to say. I don't like compromise. In politics you have to always choose a compromise and sometimes that I don't like."

"You are a bastard."

"It's not a question of right or left. Turncoats go where the power is."

"My grandfather had a plan, a strategy. He had to gain consensus. He was not a turncoat."

"I love Berlusconi. And I'll say it: I like Berlusconi. He's someone who greets you, listens to you, hears what you have to say. He creates a team. We don't do that here."

"Men... they're the same as always... they think that violence can solve problems. Make way for the women."

"I like journalists. Journalists are like confessors."

"Feltri is very clever. He has gold in his hands. He has gold in his hands. He has valid insights."

"Berlusconi loves [Mussolini] because she is so good at the spectacle of politics."

"Every minute of our life must be lived to the full – whether enjoyed or suffered. We must study, see the good around us, and fight the bad, and not waste time writing to a 90-year-old woman to tell her you wish she’d die. Besides, nature will take care of that."

"Your personal mission, your strength and your bravery are a role model for us in Israel and for Jewish communities around the world."

"What can be more patriotic than all of us fighting the pandemic together. Our coronavirus warriors are fighting this war despite lack of basic safety gear. Our doctors, health workers and social service organisations are providing treatment despite the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). Police and jawans are enforcing lockdown rules. Sanitation workers are constantly cleaning to prevent the spread of infection even in the difficult times."

"Stay at homes, wash your hands regularly and only go out from in exigencies while covering your mouth with mask, stole or cloth. This could be the best example of patriotism and cooperation against the fight with the virus."

"We cannot, however, lose sight of the fact that the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has hit the country with fury. Despite a year to prepare, we have, regrettably, been caught off guard again. Families are being torn apart, lives & livelihoods have been lost and entire life savings depleted on healthcare. It is deeply concerning to read news reports of acute shortages of medical equipment and hospital beds. Reports from across the country speak of the scarcity of Covid-19 vaccine as also of important life saving drugs including Remdesivir in different parts of the country."

"In the course of my talks with our Chief Ministers, the question of GST came up. They felt that as a preliminary measure, all equipments, instruments, medicines and support required to prevent and treat Covid-19 should be made free from GST. It is a matter of grave concern that life saving drugs like Remdesivir etc. and medical oxygen as also other basic supplements are subjected to GST @ 12%. Even basic equipments like Oxymeters and life saving critical equipment like ventilators are subjected to 20% GST. In the current state of affairs, this is inhuman and untenable."

"Vaccines are our foremost hope. Sadly, most of the states are left with a stock of just three to five days. While it will be necessary on one hand to substantially ramp up our domestic production capacity, it will also be prudent to allow emergency use authorisation of all the vaccine candidates that have the required clearances without any further delay."

"Vaccines are our foremost hope. Accordingly, with enhanced availability, categories eligible for vaccination should be expanded on the basis of need and exposure rather than just age. In the same vein, the numbers allocated to a state has to be based on the prevalence and projection of infection in that particular state."

"Vaccines are our foremost hope. Sadly, most of the states, including those ruled by the BJP and its allies, are left with a stock of just 3 to 5 days."

"Accordingly, with enhanced availability, categories eligible for vaccination should be expanded on the basis of need and exposure rather than just age. In the same vein, the numbers allocated to a state has to be based on the prevalence and projection of infection in that particular state. All equipment, instruments, medicine and support infrastructure required to deal with Covid-19 crisis should be made completely exempt from GST. Even ventilators, oximeters and oxygen cylinders currently attract GST as do key life-saving drugs like Remdesivir and Dexamethazone."

"While it will be necessary on one hand to substantially ramp up our domestic production capacity, it will also be prudent to allow emergency use authorization of all the vaccine candidates that have the required clearances, without any further delay."

"At the same time, we have to ensure that registration takes place, that vaccine hesitancy wherever evident is overcome and vaccine wastage is minimised... No doubt, this is dependent entirely on the adequacy of vaccine supply. We must continue to put pressure on the Union government which has, at our party's insistence, finally taken on the responsibility for this."

"The Modi government has mismanaged the situation--exported vaccine and allowed a shortage to be created in India.... Public gatherings, including poll rallies should be cancelled... We must focus on India's vaccination drive first and foremost, then only export vaccines and gift them to other countries. We must stress on responsible behavior adhering to all laws and Covid regulations without exception. It is our responsibility to raise issues and push the government to move away from PR tactics and act in the interest of the people."

"While it will be necessary on the one hand to substantially ramp up our domestic production capacity, it will also be prudent to allow emergency use authorisation of all the vaccine candidates that have the required clearances, without any further delay. Accordingly, with enhanced availability, categories eligible for vaccination should be expanded on the basis of need and exposure rather than just age."

"The Modi government has mismanaged the situation — exported vaccines and allowed a shortage to be created in India... We must focus on India’s vaccination drive first and foremost, then only export vaccines and gift them to other countries."

"It is absolutely essential that our party plays an active role in ensuring full vaccination coverage. At the national level, the daily rate of vaccination has to treble so that 75 per cent of our population gets fully vaccinated by end of this year. No doubt, this is dependent entirely on the adequacy of vaccine supply. We must continue to put pressure on the Union government which has, at our Party's insistence, finally taken on the responsibility for this. At the same time, we have to ensure that registration takes place, that vaccine hesitancy wherever evident is overcome and vaccine wastage is minimised."

"Experts are already talking of a possible third wave a few months from now. Some of them have been pointing to the vulnerability of children in the coming months. This too requires our urgent attention and we must take proactive measures so that they are spared this calamity. We have to take steps to be better prepared if and when this strikes."

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia."

"Singh and I had developed a warm and productive relationship. While he could be cautious in foreign policy, unwilling to get out too far ahead of an Indian bureaucracy that was historically suspicious of U.S. intentions, our time together confirmed my initial impression of him as a man of uncommon wisdom and decency…. What I couldn't tell was whether Singh's rise to power represented the future of India's democracy or merely an aberration.... In fact, he owed his position to Sonia Gandhi…more than one political observer believed that she'd chosen Singh precisely because as an elderly Sikh with no national political base, he posed no threat to her forty-year-old son, Rahul, whom she was grooming to take over the Congress Party... He feared that rising anti-Muslim sentiment had strengthened the influence of India's main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)... In the dim light, he (Singh) looked frail, older than his seventy-eight years, and as we drove off I wondered what would happen when he left office. Would the baton be successfully passed to Rahul, fulfilling the destiny laid out by his mother and preserving the Congress Party's dominance over the 'divisive nationalism' touted by the BJP?"

"The creation of the NAC in June 2004 was the first overt sign to me that Sonia's 'renunciation' of power was more of a political tactic than a response to a higher calling, or to an 'inner voice', as she put it at the time. Admittedly, she chose not to head the UPA government even after leading the Congress to electoral success in the 2004 General Elections, instead putting forward the name of Dr Singh. But, while power was delegated, authority was not. Her decisions, early on, to try and appoint a principal secretary to the PM of her choosing—the retired Tamilian official who had worked with Rajiv but declined Sonia's invitation—and to place her trusted aide Pulok Chatterjee in the PMO, were aimed at ensuring a degree of control over government. Of course, she had a decisive say in the allocation of portfolios."

"The creation of the NAC and Sonia's choice of its members was explained away as a recognition of the growing importance and influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), that claimed to represent civil society, in policymaking. However, in actual practice it created a parallel policy structure that sought to project Sonia as the voice of civil society and Dr Singh as the representative of government. While Dr Singh realized that he had no option but to live with this situation, and never complained about it, it always seemed to me that he was not too comfortable with it, even if he was willing to see merit in the ideas that came out of the NAC."

"The manner of creation of the NAC, by executive order, was no different from Nehru's creation of the Planning Commission. Many senior Congress leaders had felt unhappy about Nehru's decision to create a non-constitutional policy advisory body outside the Cabinet system, even though Nehru appointed himself as chairman of the Commission. John Mathai even resigned as finance minister from Nehru's Cabinet in protest. Yet, no one in the UPA government raised any such issues about the status and role of the NAC, a body of which the PM was not even formally the chairperson."

"Notwithstanding Dr Singh's discomfort with the NAC, intellectual differences between Sonia and him were never as sharp as projected by both her supporters and critics. Such projection, when it came from her supporters, was part of her image and brand-building. Sonia was to be projected as the 'caring socialist concerned about the welfare of the poor', while Dr Singh was to be blamed for being too fiscally conservative and pro-business. Indeed, Dr Singh, essentially a Keynesian, ended up being wrongly portrayed a 'neo-liberal' economist."

"A couple of years before Sonia Gandhi took charge of the Congress, the communist ideologue Mohit Sen wrote a persuasive column in the Times of India underlining the historic role Sonia would be called upon to play and urging her to do so. The first woman president of the Indian National Congress, he argued, was also a European woman, Annie Besant. The party, he stressed, should once again be led by another. When Mohit's column landed on my table—I was then the editorial page editor of the Times of India—I was amused and surprised. Mohit was an 'uncle', a close friend of my father from their time together in Hyderabad, and the person from whom I received my first lessons in Marxism. I called Mohit and told him that his suggestion that Sonia should take charge of the Congress was an outlandish idea. As the political party of India's freedom struggle, surely it had to have a future independent of the Nehru-Gandhi family? How could he suggest that Sonia become the party's president merely because she was Rajiv's widow? I told him people would laugh at him for his political naivete and suggested the column be junked. He was most offended and threatened to go elsewhere if I refused to publish his piece. Finally, I agreed to use it because of my affection and regard for him. Mohit's column was the first credible public call for Sonia's induction into public life."

"Mohit, as an Indira loyalist, had a special regard for her heirs. But his opinion that Sonia should enter politics was also based on his conviction that without a Nehru-Gandhi family member at the top, the Congress party would splinter and wither away. This view was also encouraged by members of the Delhi durbar—a 'power elite', to use sociologist C.Wright Mill's term, comprising civil servants, diplomats, editors, intellectuals and business leaders who had worked with or been close to the regimes of Nehru, Indira and Rajiv. Some of them inhabited the many trusts and institutions that the Nehru-Gandhi family controlled. They had all profited in one way or another, over the years, from their loyalty to the Congress's 'first family'."

"Sonia and I had been friends in the days before Rajiv became prime minister. Tensions built up when I criticized his policies, and our friendship ended completely when she entered politics and showed that she wanted very much to become prime minister herself. There was nothing personal about my objections to her political role. They were based on my conviction that an Italian prime minister of India would seriously damage the already fragile sense of self-worth that most Indians have. Centuries of being ruled by foreigners have caused a congenital kink in the Indian psyche... but if there is reverence there is also shame at this reverence, and in retrospect I believe that if Sonia Gandhi had agreed to become prime minister in 2004, she would have certainly not won a second term for her government. At every turn she would have been accused of being the 'foreign woman', and every calamity would have been blamed on her personally. So she was well advised by her 'inner voice' to reject the job when she was offered it in 2004. This transformed her into the Mother Teresa of politics in the eyes of not just ordinary Indians but even senior political commentators. In an exchange I had on CNN-IBN with the venerable editor Vinod Mehta on Karan Thapar's show once, he said, 'Indians love people who sacrifice high office and this is why Sonia Gandhi is so loved.' She had only sacrificed accountability, not power, I reminded him, and he had no response, but he was not the only one who sang Sonia's praises after her 'sacrifice'. Since that day of 'sacrifice', sycophants had in the name of protecting secularism crawled out of everywhere. Journalists, bureaucrats, businessmen, movie stars and political leaders united to praise Sonia's 'sacrifice'. ... She spoke to nobody until she appeared in Parliament's Central Hall to announce to her newly elected MPs that her 'inner voice' had advised her against becoming prime minister and she intended to obey it. Her announcement caused hysterical shrieks and wails to rise in that high-ceilinged hall as men and women elected by the people of India to represent them in Parliament behaved like children suddenly bereaved of a parent."

"India in the 1970s was a land of horrible poverty. The death rate for newborn babies was more than 100 per thousand. In Gandhiji's 'real India', it was hard to find a village of 'pucca' houses or people in those villages who could write their names. These were things never discussed in the drawing rooms in which Rajiv and Sonia spent their evenings, so the India of poverty, disease, deprivation and dirt never intruded into the life of the woman who would one day become de facto Empress of India. Later she loved saying in the handful of interviews she gave that she had never understood why anyone saw her as a foreigner because that is not how she saw herself. And the carefully vetted interviewers never asked why then she had become an Indian citizen only after her husband became a politician."

"What is true is that Sonia Gandhi's very successful political career was built with the help of many, many powerful Indians. High officials kowtowed before her as before no other political leader, even after her 'inner voice' persuaded her not to become prime minister. Fearless investigative journalists never bothered to investigate her role in the Bofors bribery scandal even after bribe money was found in the Swiss bank accounts of her two best friends, Ottavio and Maria Quattrocchi, and major politicians accepted her suzerainty. And Delhi's drawing rooms reverberated with praise of the new Empress of India. This is truly what she was, because except in matters of daily governance she remained in total charge of the government."

"Sonia knew nothing of Indian politics but what troubled me more on that morning of her victory was that I knew well that the India she knew, and I am not at all sure loved, was an India whose boundaries did not extend beyond the drawing rooms of Lutyens' Delhi. It was an India of memsahibs and sahibs, big bungalows and ayahs and holidays in Corbett Park or in the summer months somewhere in the hills. The vast, turbulent nation that lay beyond the framework of this dreary canvas she knew nothing of. In all the years that she lived in Delhi as a prime minister's daughter-in-law and wife I never once saw her show concerns that could be described as social, except if this word were to be used in the context of social secretaries and dinner parties."

"The reason I quote this sycophantic comment is because it reflects perfectly the consensus in smoke-filled newspaper offices and in Delhi's television studios. And Sonia, reserved to the point of being uneasy with conversation of any kind, used this to her advantage when it came to handling the media. She evolved a policy whereby she refused to talk to journalists except those who were carefully vetted as supportive and obedient. The kind that may have asked her questions about India's stand on important international issues or big political and economic problems were never allowed near her. The media was most helpful in this exercise. In newsrooms and TV studios I seemed always to run into some editor or columnist who had just come from 10 Janpath. You could tell that they had almost before they said anything in her support. No sooner did they get that invitation to tea in 10 Janpath than hard-boiled reporters would acquire so changed an expression on their faces that jokes began to be made about how 'one cup of tea with Sonia Gandhi could change the DNA of a journalist'."

"Everyone knew that Sonia Gandhi was India's real prime minister right from the moment in 2004 that Dr Manmohan Singh was chosen as her proxy, but her friends in the media – and their ranks were legion – continued to perpetuate the lie that she never interfered in policy. Ministers openly defied the prime minister and still they pretended that India had a real government instead of one appointed by someone whose only political qualification was that she married into a certain family. Editors who would tear government policies to shreds in their columns would never blame them on 10 Janpath. Sonia became as powerful as she did, and without any accountability, with the media playing an insidious, irresponsible role. When I asked famous TV anchors and colleagues in the print media why they accepted so compliantly her absolute refusal to give interviews they had no answers, but later I discovered that they had private access not just to her but to her children. This was enough to keep them quiet. In my own case I continued to point out every instance of direct interference by Sonia in government policy and was reviled for it. And because I was in a minority of one I soon became a target. After Shekhar Gupta resigned from the editorship of the Indian Express he told me that she had personally asked him to stop my column on the grounds of what I wrote against her."

"When Sonia Gandhi's government came back to power for a second term, nobody was more delighted than the denizens of Delhi's drawing rooms. They pretended that their support for Sonia was because of their 'secular' and 'socialist' convictions. But as someone who understood this milieu well, I knew it was really because the Dynasty represented for them a vindication of their class and confirmation that the people of that India that lay beyond their tiny, elite, English-speaking world was as certain as they were that India was ruled best when it was ruled by its natural-born ruling class. Prime ministers from the wilds of Gandhiji’s 'real India' like Deve Gowda, Charan Singh and Chandrashekhar had shown that they did not have the mass appeal that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty did. 'You see, dear, Sonia may well come from a humble background, but you have to admit that she is more like a maharani than most maharanis. She has learned how to rule.'"

"Mighty editors and TV stars of Lutyens' Delhi virtually became Sonia's public relations agents. So the picture created by the media was of a highly intelligent, compassionate political leader whose only reason for being in public life was her desire to do something for India's 'poor'. They knew that she was India's de facto prime minister but nobody ever wrote this, just as nobody ever wrote that her National Advisory Council was more powerful than poor Dr Manmohan Singh's cabinet. They knew that Rahul was apolitical and confused about economic and governance issues, but they kept quiet about these things and accepted him as the heir by birth to the democratic throne of India."

"Mussolini was a good politician, in that everything he did, he did for Italy. There hasn't been any other politicians like that in the last fifty years."

"They want to call us parent 1, parent 2, gender LGBT, citizen X, with code numbers. But we are not code numbers… and we’ll defend our identity. I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian. You will not take that away from me!"

"Borders exist only if you defend them. Otherwise they do not exist."

"When I am something, I declare it. I never hide. If I were fascist, I would say that I am fascist. Instead, I have never spoken of fascism because I am not fascist."

"Yes to the natural family. No to the LGBT lobby. Yes to sexual identity. No to gender ideology."

"The Ukrainian people are defending the values of freedom and democracy on which our civilization is based, and the very foundations of international law."

"Military aid was needed to help a nation under attack."

"If a jet violates airspace, it is shot down."

"I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian, and you can't take that away from me."

"Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death."

"No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration, yes to work for our people, no to major international finance."

"When you are a woman you are often underestimated, but that can help you."

"I believe that the state should incentivize the natural family based on marriage."

"I believe in a society where every choice has consequences, and you accept responsibility for them. I reject a society where every desire becomes a right, every whim becomes a right, where I have no responsibilities, I have only rights. I reject it. It’s wrong."

"Is it right for a society to spend more energy and resources trying to find quick and easy ways to get rid of human life, rather than trying to encourage it? Is that normal? Is that civilized? Is it right that you, correctly, cannot rip a newborn puppy from the bosom of its mother but you can with a baby, the child of a desperate mother who sold it to two rich men?"

"Why do Italian courts take away legal custody from two married parents, the natural parents of a baby girl, saying they are too old to raise her at 52 and 54, taking away their natural daughter? But if two men over 50 go abroad and buy a child, that’s fine. Why?"

"Why if they told us that that the father of Eluana Englaro should be free to disconnect the plug that kept her alive, because nobody knows better than a parent what is best for their child, why did the same not apply to the parents of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans? Why is the winner always the one who wants to disconnect the plug? Why is the winner always death?"

"If the life of a sick child like Alfie Evans is defined as pointless, how long before they define as pointless the life of a disabled or elderly person? Or anyone who doesn’t correspond to the idea of a perfect consumer?"

"Why do we spend our time fighting all types of discrimination but we pretend not to see the greatest ongoing persecution, the genocide of the world’s Christians?"

"Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening?"

"There is a single answer to all these questions. Because it defines us. Because it is our identity. Because everything that defines us is now an enemy. For those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves. And so, they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent 1, Parent 2, I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer."

"That’s the reason why we inspire so much fear. That’s why this [World Congress of Families] event inspires so much fear. Because we do not want to be numbers. We will defend the value of a human being. Every single human being. Because each of us has a unique genetic code that is unrepeatable. And, like it or not, that is sacred. We will defend it. We will defend God, country and family. Those things that disgust people so much. We will do it to defend our freedom because we will never be slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators. That is our mission. That is why I came here today. Chesterton wrote more than a century ago, “Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.” That time has arrived. We are ready."

"It is a banal fact of reality that it isn't possible to imagine a guarantee of enduring security by diving Europe from the United States."

"It is right for Europe to equip itself to play its part but gullible to think it can do so on its own, outside the framework."

"in the face of proposals that we respect but do not convince us, always thanking those who at this stage take the responsibility of making proposals, I will be clear in front of this Chamber: the sending of Italian troops to Ukraine is a topic that has never been on the agenda, just as we believe that the sending of European troops, proposed initially by the United Kingdom and France, is a very complex, risky and ineffective option."

"it is the stalemate on the ground that today can lead to peace negotiations and I think we should proudly claim the united and determined support for the Ukrainian people."

"Therefore we welcome this phase and support the effort launched by President Trump."

"I am convinced that we must continue to work with concreteness and pragmatism, to find a possible common ground and avoid a trade war that would benefit no one, neither the United States nor Europe."

"I believe it is not wise to fall into the temptation of retaliations, which become a vicious circle in which everyone loses."

"With the same determination I want to say that we stand by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella every time he is attacked for the sole reason of having recalled who the attackers and who the attacked are."

"We want to free up African energy to guarantee younger generations a right which to date has been denied, Because here in Europe we talk a lot about the right to emigrate, but we rarely talk about guaranteeing the right to not be forced to emigrate."

"It’s a cooperation of equals, far from any predatory temptation but also far from the charitable posture with Africa that rarely is reconciled with its extraordinary potential for development."

"Italy’s Giorgia Meloni opens Africa summit with plan to curb migration and boost development. Euro News ( January 29, 2024)."

"It is an important moment for the Albanian nation and all of us. The European identity of Albania is a fact of history. Albania is Europe like Italy, regardless of whether you are part of a certain organization or not. I always smile when someone tries to claim who is European and who is not."

"We are taking a step forward in the process of European reunification. Enlargement also means new challenges, but I am convinced that the integration of the BP countries into the EU is in the best interests of Europe's security. Our destinies are intertwined."

"It’s clear that we hoped for better in terms of immigration when we have worked so hard, the results are not what we hoped for. It is certainly a very complex problem, but I am sure we will get to the bottom of it."

"I didn't believe that Giorgia Meloni could recompose a political community that had also been human: I was wrong, she has built a small authentic masterpiece, if today the right wing is the governing right wing, it is due to that political intuition to restore political dignity to the right wing."

"When you have faith, you can endure suffering. There are some sufferings that have no name, that you can't describe or justify, but when you believe in God, you no longer ask why me and not someone else. And that is a great achievement."

"(About the the of the 1990 high school graduation exam) I would have proposed a different topic. I would have set the Italian exam paper on: “What are the elements that—historically, culturally, and institutionally—define the unity of a country, in a world that, on the one hand, increasingly values particular realities (from an ethnic, traditional, or cultural point of view) and, on the other, broader supranational dimensions?”"

"(About the Bicameral Committee for Constitutional Reforms) The conditions are in place for positive work. We must all carry it out with the best interests of our country in mind. We will and must be judged on this work."

"I believe the time is ripe for a woman as President of the Italian Republic. This is also thanks to the long journey women have made over the past 50 years in the fight for rights and complete equality. :*‘’Bonino: “Yes to the challenge for the Quirinale”‘’, ‘'La Stampa’', March 7, 1999."

"(About the comparison between Palmiro Togliatti and Massimo D'Alema) D'Alema has great political intelligence, but he has less experience, which leads him to be more impetuous and less attentive to repercussions."

"Since women have been recognized as fully equal in the political sphere, with the right to vote and stand for election, it follows that women themselves must be emancipated from conditions of backwardness and inferiority in all areas of social life, and restored to a legal position that does not undermine their personality and dignity as women and citizens."

"(About the exploratory task of forming a government entrusted to her by Francesco Cossiga) Perhaps to say that it is a historic event is to say too much. But certainly, it is a development of no small importance. :*‘’“I light a candle, so that it won't be me”‘’, ‘'La Stampa’', March 28, 1987."

"(About Palmiro Togliatti) They spoke of his ties to Stalin and his awe, even in difficult times. In reality, he knew him little: they had met on three or four occasions. He admired him as a tough and tenacious fighter, but he understood the revelations of the 20th Congress and was shocked by them. [...] He had a keen sensitivity, a strong propensity to understand. I know that the image of him is different, but I knew him in another way. He defended himself against facts that deeply disturbed him, but his intelligence forced him to accept them as moments in the journey of civilization."

"(About the defeat of the Popular Democratic Front in the 1948 elections) On April 18, we found ourselves faced with a population called upon for the first time, unlike in 1946, to choose the parties that would govern after the breakup of the anti-fascist unity. It was a society we knew very little about."

"From an interview with ‘'l'Unità’'; quoted in ‘’[http://www.archiviolastampa.it/component/option,com_lastampa/task,search/mod,libera/action,viewer/Itemid,3/page,9/articleid,1326_02_1988_0094_0030_19271116/ Nilde Iotti recalls April 18, 1948. “At that time, the Italian Communist Party did not understand society,” La Stampa, April 16, 1988."

"(About Massimo D'Alema secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left) At a time like this, we need a party leader with many skills."

"The Constitution does not and cannot have either an ideology or a partisan philosophy."

"(About nuclear armaments) The atomic race has reached a dangerous and intolerable limit, as ordinary citizens in every country understand. The time has come for their leaders to understand this too. :*From a speech to Michelin workers; quoted in ‘’A message of peace and hope from Nilde Iotti visiting the “Granda”‘’, ‘'La Stampa’', March 18, 1985."

"The presence of women in Parliament has elevated women's issues as an integral part of Italian political life. In the past, these issues were kept on the sidelines."

"The Resistance was an extraordinary event. It achieved a truly exceptional unity that ranged from Badoglio's officers to communist workers."

"(Referring to the Northern League) The leagues stir up old ideas of separation and selfishness that call national unity into question."

"In the democratic system established by the Constitution, the Parliament, and only the Parliament, is the expression of the will of the people. Our Constitution does not allow the country to be without a Parliament endowed with its powers for even a single day."

"We ask that children born outside of marriage be recognized in all respects, both during marriage and when that marriage has broken down, because we believe that this is the only possible solution, the only morally just solution. [...] Children do not ask to be born, and the responsibility for their birth does not lie with them, but with the parents who brought them into the world. Therefore, the responsibility of the parents cannot fall on them."

"I shouldn't speak, given that I was president of the Chamber of Deputies, but de Mita's main flaw is that he wants to respond to everyone who speaks, one by one. He never waits for the discussion on a point to be exhausted. :*‘’Iotti: “De Mita does not know how to be president”, La Stampa, November 19, 1992."

"(About the attack to Palmiro Togliatti) It is impossible to understand that dramatic event without recalling the heated climate that followed the Christian Democrats' resounding election victory on April 18, 1948. That climate was very important, it was decisive. No one could have imagined that the election campaign led by the Church of Pius XII and the civic committees of Luigi Gedda could reach such a degree of violence. A violence that did not abate on the part of the victors even after their overwhelming success. That atmosphere, I repeat, was undoubtedly at the root of the attack to Togliatti. :*‘’Four gunshots to kill the Best‘’, ‘'la Repubblica’', July 14, 1998."

"(About her relationship with Palmiro Togliatti) To think that I could have made an emotional ultimatum such as “if you stay in Russia, I'll leave you” is to ignore the nature of our relationship and Togliatti's temperament. :*‘’A story of love and politics‘’, ‘'La Stampa’', March 28, 1987."

"(About women's commitments beyond work) When I started my political career, I had a home and had to think about that too, in addition to the thousand commitments that political life entails. :*‘’Parliament celebrates Nilde Iotti's 70th birthday‘’, ‘'La Stampa’', April 10, 1990."

"(Abot attack to Palmiro Togliatti) When, a few days after his surgery, he was allowed to read the newspapers, Togliatti wanted to read the reports of the attack. He was struck by a nine-column headline in L'Unità: “Away with the government of civil war.” I remember his comment: if they had written “Away with the Minister of the Interior,” that would have been a request that was not only plausible but also acceptable! And in fact, it later emerged that in the Council of Ministers, which met urgently on the same day as the attack, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlo Sforza, and his undersecretary, a very young Aldo Moro, had raised the issue of the Minister of the Interior's resignation."

"(About the request for a new Constituent Assembly during Tangentopoli) A constituent assembly is convened when there is such a rupture within the country, as happened after the war and after the fall of fascism, and this was indispensable. Even in the presence of very serious events, of a dangerous degeneration of the political system, we are not in a post-war situation, and resorting to a constituent assembly seems to me to be truly excessive."

"Interviewer: In recent months, you have become even more popular because you are the author of a proposal to drastically reduce—if not halve—the number of deputies and senators. Why? Nilde Iotti: In 1948, when the Constitution of the Italian Republic came into force, we were emerging from fascism and there was a need to reestablish a relationship, a democratic fabric with society. But now there are: Regional Councils, which were elected in 1970, Provincial Councils, Municipal Councils. We are faced with a much more complex society, a more complex democracy. So, I believe that the number of parliamentarians is really too high."

"We loved the mountains. Togliatti was a keen walker, as was I."

"(About Togliatti's memorial) It is not true that Togliatti was exploited, that the memorial was used against Khrushchev. I do not see a connection between the memorial and the fall of Khrushchev. The great process that would lead to this event was already underway in the USSR."

"(About his last trip to Russia) Togliatti was concerned about relations between the USSR and China, and about the situation between the party and intellectuals that had arisen after Khrushchev had taken a very rigid and harsh stance."

"(Aboout the Togliatti amnesty of 1946) The amnesty helped break the continuity with a regime that constantly preached revenge."

"(About Togliatti's failure to participate in the Resistance movement) I assure you that Togliatti was not far from the Resistance. He was a cold man, yes. But he hated badges, and the only one he always wanted to show off was the one given to him by the Volunteer Corps of Freedom. If he could have, he would have parachuted into northern Italy. Cold, yes, but he had utopia inside him."

"Talking about amnesty in the case of the Years of Lead would be out of place. Let's not forget that the armed struggle was waged against a democratic state, not against a fascist regime."

"(About Clean Hands) What frightens and worries me is the slowness of the judicial proceedings in the face of a perverse intertwining of politics and business that has increasingly taken on the configuration of a vast, widespread, ramified system."

"It’s easier to be on TV. Politics is much harsher than the small screen."

"[Three adjectives to describe yourself?] Moody. Determined. Sensitive."

"(About Francesco Boccia) At the beginning of our relationship, he was a free spirit, very much aligned with the libertine ideal embodied by Franco Califano, his idol and dearest friend. I was insecure and saw danger everywhere; today, I don’t. Family comes first for both of us. However, at the start of our relationship, he was easily distracted—that’s for sure."

"Interviewer: What is your erotic fantasy? De Girolamo: Doing it in public, on a beach or in the street, without worrying about prying eyes."

"I’m very straight, but anything can happen—who knows? I get hit on by men but also by lots of women. Today I received a letter from a lesbian girl who wrote that I’m her ideal woman. And I also have lots of foot fetishists who’d do anything for me, even though I’m a size 10—not exactly Cinderella’s shoe size."

"(At the funeral of Nilde Iotti) She had a conception of democracy in which a political opponent is a friend. She always considered the other person’s point of view."

"Credo che la giornata più difficile, più dolorosa, sia stata sicuramente quella del comunicato del Lago della Duchessa [18 aprile 1978]. Fu un momento molto doloroso, molto difficile, quello di dire alla moglie e ai figli che c'era questa ipotesi di una possibile uccisione di Aldo Moro. Tuttavia non posso dimenticare che quando i figli e io stessa ci mettemmo a piangere, la signora Moro, con una grandissima forza d'animo, prima ci invitò a pregare e poi disse: "Vabbè, aspettate un momento che vado a farvi un buon caffè; ci vuole un buon caffè". E così fece. Passai con loro parecchie ore, perché appunto si era in attesa di qualche conferma o di qualcosa che smentisse il comunicato."

"Il mio rammarico è che non si è voluto continuare a indagare, a studiare il nostro lavoro, ad andare fino in fondo, a leggere, a soppesare i 120 volumi degli atti della Commissione, che tutti potrebbero consultare, che si trovano nella biblioteca della Camera"

"The Constitution was her civil Gospel. The Constitution "born of the Resistance": she often quoted it and used it as a compass, as a point of reference when she had to make political decisions."

"Tina Anselmi is a very likeable woman. [...] She has a serious, frank and straightforward manner, down-to-earth, without insincere modesty or off-putting arrogance. She has a beautiful, ever-present smile and a lovely, clear complexion. She possesses that special phlegmatic serenity and human understanding towards everyone which are the qualities of a mediator by vocation."

"As a citizen, and as President of the Chamber of Deputies, I bow to the Constitution and pledge to strictly fulfil my institutional mandate. As a Catholic, I cannot but entrust my work in this Parliament – and, in prayer, the life of the nation – to the will of God, to whom the destinies of all nations and of history belong."

"[On constitutional reform] We will have to tackle specific constitutional changes together, and this is why our sense of responsibility towards all Italians must be all the greater, at a time when they have called upon us to write a new chapter in our history."

"(About the contradiction highlighted by Gianfranco Fini between being an institutional figure and a member of the Lega Nord) Being a member of the Lega is not unconstitutional or unlawful. I remain a Lega MP, even though I am not taking any action in this capacity, because I respect the rules. [...] In this Parliament there are committee chairmen who were officers of the Republic of Salò. And Mr Fini should know that very well."

"(About the possibility of criminal charges for the secessionist remarks made by Umberto Bossi) The opinions expressed by MPs in the Chamber are beyond reproach. A constitutional expert should weigh in on this, but as far as I am concerned, freedom of expression takes precedence over everything. In the Chamber, at least. Of course, it would be a different matter if Bossi, outside Montecitorio, were to tell his supporters, ‘Get ready, we’re going to secede’."

"(About the secession called for by Umberto Bossi) The only thing that is sacrosanct in the Constitution is the republican form of government, yet we have had a monarchist party for years. If the rules of democracy are respected, there are no problems."

"(About the Mantua parliament) There has been endless rambling and pointless squabbling about that, but no one has pointed out that in Italy there is no chamber called ‘Parliament’: there is a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. The one in Mantua, I believe, has a different name."

"I’ve learnt not to yearn for things, but to make the best of what I have."

"I’m a person who moves on – not in terms of my feelings or values, but in terms of my professional experiences and life in general."

"Faith is part of my body, just like the nervous system, the bones or the blood: you know you have all these things, but you don’t always mention them."

"The rest of the cast, just to be fair, was made up as follows. The mother of a child who had received a miracle from Padre Pio. The friar who acts as spokesperson for the Padre Pio Foundation. The Catholic scholar Vittorio Messori, who recounted having received a miracle from Padre Pio: a letter had been delivered to his home just one hour after being posted by Padre Pio. Luciano Rispoli, who was married by Padre Pio. And above all the devout Irene Pivetti, who never met Padre Pio but is living proof of the existence of miracles: no one can rationally explain how she managed to become Speaker of the House."

"Irene Pivetti. She had received so much from the League and threw it all away."

"She's no turncoat, but what happened to her is monstrous. Today's Pivetti, all leather and studs, bald and with her breasts exposed, looks like the daughter of that woman in the Chamber of Deputies with her scarf and little suit."

"The circular economy should not be a slogan; it should be something that is sustainable for industry and the market. I can tell you one thing: I have never seen regeneration and vitality in an area where industries have abandoned the site, so we need to regenerate the area; we need to make it compatible with the industries that continue to operate there."

"For the sake of intellectual honesty, we must recall who, in Italy, prior to 2012, negotiated, agreed upon and then approved the ESM, which was subsequently reformed. All the European preparatory work prior to the establishment of the ESM took place between 2010 and 2011; in office at the time was the Fourth Berluscon Government, supported by the Lega, the then Popolo delle Libertà party, and that section of Popolo delle Libertà which would later become Fratelli d'Italia."

"The key milestone in this historical, political and legal journey is that we have come to understand that violating women's physical, mental, moral and economic integrity is a violation of human rights."

"We have come to understand that the scope of gender-based violence extends to reproductive violence, an issue we should consider in light of all the struggles our country has gone through on reproductive rights. We have also drawn up a convention on violence in the workplace, which covers not only the workplace itself but also attacks on sexual integrity."

"When it comes to gender-based violence, we should also reflect on the problem that weighs on our country, namely that we have rightly accepted the presence on our territory of citizens who are fully entitled to be here – because they hold residence permits and because they work and are part of the workforce we need. At the same time, however, we do not need to import into our country cultural models that are unacceptable and contrary to our public order."

"[...] In my view, specifically with regard to violence against women, there is a public order problem that no one is noticing, namely the introduction of unacceptable family models into a democratic system like ours."

"[...] Teachers are the first point of contact for a child experiencing violence; therefore, teachers need to be prepared and trained to recognise such signals – they need to be able to decipher a pattern, an issue, or a psychological attitude that is not right. The question is: are they capable of doing that today? From my personal experience, unfortunately, I have to say no, not least because the cumbersome procedures and the complexity of getting a report to its intended recipient are such that the system is effectively at a standstill."

"From the very beginning, from the very first moment it took office, the government led by Prime Minister Meloni has made our country's international position clear, choosing to show solidarity with Ukraine and acting in perfect continuity, without ambiguity and without hesitation, with the previous government."

"[...] Never before has so much money been spent on armaments. Of course, war makes things worse, as it encourages everyone to allocate even more resources to that area. Why is this happening? It is happening because there is more fear – fear which, instead, should be driving renewed efforts to persuade the warring parties to move towards a negotiated end to the conflict [...] The ongoing war in Ukraine and its economic, food and energy consequences have highlighted our shared vulnerabilities. We have all discovered that we are weaker when war is raging around us, not least because, in the face of the fear and the costs brought about by the conflict, not everyone can resist the temptation to act alone to protect themselves better, even at the expense of others."

"We believe that, when technologies cause psychosocial harm linked to the loss of the unborn child's genetic parental identity, this is not progress but regression, a form of barbarism. This is the case with assisted reproduction, which creates an unacceptable disconnect between social parentage and biological parentage – a rift between genetic parentage, gestational parentage and educational responsibility– with inevitable and irreparable psychological harm to the unborn child. Nor should it be claimed, as has been said many times, that the concept of parenthood is evolving today towards new horizons, because parents' horizons are different from those of their child, especially when we consider that the couple today is increasingly unstable and therefore in need of well-considered and, so to speak, 'orthodox' choices. You only have to look at the statistics to see the alarming figures. Nor should we accept the provocative claim, which I often hear repeated here and in public debates, that Italy is full of 'children of assisted reproduction' because they are the result of a woman's relationship with the milkman on duty. We believe that, when science is called upon to make up for nature's shortcomings, we should not imitate nature's excesses and degenerations, but rather preserve as natural a character as possible for the parental role, thereby avoiding the chaos of socially unprecedented and hard-to-define figures."

"(About the Cirinnà Bill of Law) These problems are the result of a devious political strategy. In words, they said they wanted to create a new legal entity, a union between people of the same sex; in practice, they mimicked traditional marriage to the point of creating a hybrid."

"Despite the debate over the different roles that will be defined in the next stages of the institutional framework, all the political parties represent the community as a whole."

"Please forgive my emotion, but for me, the decision you have made to elect a woman to the Presidency of this Assembly for the first time represents a responsibility that I cannot hide behind any formal preamble."

"The age of globalization offers opportunities and knowledge, but at the same time carries with it the risk of new forms of marginalization—a risk that cannot be ignored or underestimated, starting with the real economy and starting with the workplace."

"I am also here because I could no longer put up with the views of those who – in order to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the financial and media community – go so far as to describe the twenty-year period of fascism as "the absolute evil"."

"Fini disappointed me because he's afraid of women, because he doesn't believe in meritocracy, and because he makes you feel like he's the only intelligent person around."

"Silvio Berlusconi has no respect for women; his life shows this day after day. He told that young woman in precarious employment to marry a billionaire: that is not the solution to precarious employment. Voting for Silvio Berlusconi is the most pointless vote women can cast."

"(About Muhammad) He was polygamous; he had nine wives, [...] the youngest of whom was nine years old. He was a paedophile. [...] In our culture, he was a paedophile."

"What's the point of tapping a mobster while he's talking to his mother? It's an abuse of power."

"There is none so deaf as he who will not hear. Disclosing wiretaps that relate to an individual's intimate and private life, rather than to the criminal offences for which the wiretapping was ordered, constitutes an unacceptable violation of that individual's privacy and rights."

"We have left Silvio Berlusconi alone for too long in his denunciation of the 'iron axis' between judges and left-wing journalists. And we've left the journalists alone for too long. True journalists like Feltri, Belpietro, Ostellino, Ferrara, Fede and Rossella."

"(About Oriana Fallaci) [...] left to her own devices as she imagined a better world."

"(Regarding Gaddafi's visit to Rome) When a Head of State visits think we need to show the respect that we sometimes lack a bit: I don't know if there were acrobats, dwarves and dancers on that occasion, because I wasn't there, so I can't know."

"I do politics, and I am only willing to respond to political arguments. I've never made personal issues out of anything, never gossiped, and never resorted to backbiting."

"(Referring to Pier Ferdinando Casini) [...] if you try to be moderate at all costs, in the end you become modest."

"Even if they make mistakes, law enforcement officers are never murderers."

"(About Giorgio Napolitano) I think he's the worst President of the Republic ever."

"Islam is a terminal cancer for the West; it must be eradicated before the metastases spread to Italy."

"America and the world need Trump. This is a time for identity, for borders, for exclusion – not for panic-stricken inclusion..."

"Regarding the media reports about his business activities... Some newspapers are spreading huge lies, which is why we are going to file our own lawsuit for damages [...] I hope that in a few years' time, I will have a tidy sum, and that with my damages, I might be able to help someone who needs me more. (13 July 2023)"

"Berlusconi has allied himself with the worst kind of traitor, Gianfranco Fini."

"Fini has become a party functionary, like so many others."

"I'm not into grey tones; I'm all for black or white."

"The only thing that is certain is that Berlusconi has genuinely been persecuted."

"For a Catholic, absolute evil is the Devil, not Fascism."

"We need to condemn them harshly; all racial laws should be condemned. However, I would never say that fascism is absolute evil, because for me, fascism is not absolute evil."

"Fascism was a period in our country's history, and today, anyone who opposes the cultural hegemony of the left is labelled a fascist, so just think how many times I've been told I'm a fascist. I'm proud to be a fascist, because I'm in good company."

"To build my career, I've never made compromises; I've never given in – in other words, I've never sold out."

"I am one of the few female politicians in Italy who is not a tool of men. I am free and independent in my thinking. In fact, I think I'm more capable of using Berlusconi than the other way around."

"Berlusconi has given me several gifts: bracelets, necklaces and various tokens of affection on public holidays and on my birthdays. He is a generous man who cares about people; there are few like him. We are still friends. For a right-wing woman, this is a very important value, but unfortunately, Silvio has now descended into the political circus."

"Over the course of my career, I have been pursued by several women, and I am flattered by that."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: after what happened to little Yara, the judges should resign."

"If they had used the same resources and technology for the search as they did to investigate the Olgettina girls, perhaps Yara would still be alive."

"They took it out on the volunteers who were looking for that poor girl, when in fact they are heroes. They even accused the community of Brembate of maintaining a code of silence, without realising that people in the North Italy are like that – they keep their grief to themselves."

"Yara's community needs to know that even if they catch the monster, he'll only serve a third of his sentence, because we've basically forgotten about life imprisonment by now. Not to mention temporary releases – perhaps the first one to attend his father's funeral and the second to visit him in hospital, eh?"

"Everyone is calling for everyone to resign. Berlusconi over the Rubygate scandal, Bondi because a rotten wall collapsed in Pompeii, Rosi Mauro over the way she managed the Senate chamber, Calderoli..."

"Our individual freedoms – the privacy of our conversations, our post and our homes – are being increasingly curtailed. Nowadays, we're all worried about talking on the phone..."

"Daniela Santanché hates going out and going to parties."

"Something tells me that the team of Sallusti and Santanchè will prove to be more active, imaginative and dynamic than the team of Feltri and Belpietro. In any case, it will be interesting, given that Sallusti relates to Pavolini in the same way that Feltri relates to Badoglio."

"We need the TSO here; put a straitjacket on her."