"Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded; and how we pastFrom Como, when the light was gray, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Of Lari Maxume, all the way,Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept;Or hardly slept, but watch’d awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o’er a terrace One tall Agavè above the lake."

"One is still close to the mountains (of Lake Como) and yet the desire already perceives the plain and a vast silent fertility."

"It is the most voluptuous place I have ever seen in the world. Nature enchants with a thousand unknown seductions and one feels in a state of rare sensuality and refinement."

"The lake as a whole is sweet, loving, Italian. Steep close-ups, warm colors of the houses; snowy horizon and all bordered by splendid houses, made for study and for love. – Taglioni, Pasta, on the left bank of the lake starting from Como. – Villa Sommariva; stone stairway descending into the water to embark on the gondola, large trees, roses blooming on a fountain."

"Who that looks on these tawny hills | Cradling calm day new-born, | Who that sips mead from Como’s stills | This fragrant, sun-bathed morn, Will, bating reverende, record | Fair Como’s wrathful, ways, | And wont only ungrateful, hoard | The tale of her «bade days’?» | To day her ripples play bo-peep, | And dimple at the rocks | Lack in melodious mimicry | A sounding billow mocks."

"You, Lario (Lake Como) very great. (Virgil)"

"When you write the story of two happy lovers, place them on the shores of Lake Como. I do not know a district more manifestly blessed by heaven; I've never seen another where the charms of a life of love would seem more natural [...] and start it with these words: "On the shores of Lake Como.""

"Lake Como [...] is not like Lake Geneva surrounded by large fields well delimited and cultivated with the best systems, which suggest money and speculation. Here, wherever I turn, I see hills of unequal altitudes clothed with trees planted at will that the hand of man has not yet damaged and forced to bear fruit. Among these hills with admirable lines that plummet towards the lake for so singular steep slopes [...]. Everything here nobly, exquisitely speaks of love, there is nothing that reminds you of the ugliness of civilization."

"[...] at eventide when everything seems to slumber , and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one almost believes that nowhere else than on the Lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil repose."

"That there is a God, when you look at the sky of Lake Como, is evident. (Robin Williams)"

"No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks / The silence of the summer day, / As by the loveliest of all lakes / I while the idle hours away."

"Everything is noble and delicate (on Lake Como), everything speaks of love, nothing recalls the ugliness of civilization."

"In the past, the rich bought houses and villas only on the hills of Lake Como, as Pliny did with Villa Commedia, in order not to lose their sight and to avoid flooding. "The poor went to the shore to have the water lick their feet"."

"And, (Lake) Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth / Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth / Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake / Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots / Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids; / Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines, / Winding from house to house, from town to town, / Sole link that binds them to each other ; walks, / League after league, and cloistral avenues, / Where silence dwells if music be not there."

"And dimly seen, a tangled mass. Of Walls and woods of light and shade. Stands beckoning up the Stelvio pass Varenna, with its white cascade. I ask myself is this a dream? Will it all vanish into air? Is there a land of such supreme. And perfect beauty anywhere! Sweet vision! Do not fade away; Linger until my heart shall take- Into itself the Summer day And all the beauty of the lake."

"I didn't like university life much at Bologna. The subjects I studied - economics and business administration - didn't interest me. I wanted to make films. I was glad when I was graduated. Yet it's odd; on graduation day, I was overcome with a terrible sadness. I realized that my youth was over and now the struggle had begun."

"The popularity of Metastasio and Petrarch in the eighteenth century had caused many people to look upon Italian as an effeminate language—-a view which was now criticized by Macaulay, for example: 'It is a general opinion, among those who know little or nothing of the subject, that this admirable language is adapted only to the effeminate cant of sonneteers, musicians and connoisseurs.' Leigh Hunt, in particular, strove to eradicate this prejudice: 'One of the great objects of the present writer, for many years past, has been to lure his readers into the love of other languages, particularly of this (Italian) most beautiful of them all,' and for this reason he gave the original Italian in quotations as well as his translation."

"When you see Basilicata you see fields, vineyards, beautiful landascapes. You see the land as it should be."

"This land resembles no other place. Sardinia is something else. Enchanting spaces and distances to travel-nothing finished, nothing definitive. It is like freedom itself."

"The Sardinians are a sturdy race, but at the same time alert, lively, and brave, even to rashness; firm friends but implacable enemies; quick of understanding, of vivacious imagination and passionately fond of poetry, zealous in maintaining their rights and liberty, but loyal and fond of their King and Country."

"The Sards themselves are not a talkative race (unless you get them going on politics or some other subject dear to their hearts). Nor are they theatrical or gregarious like other Italians, but they look frankly in the eye and treat you as a human being first before they judge you as anything else. D.H. Lawrence wondered at the boldness of women. You will probably never meet an obsequious Sard."

"In part, the Sardinian outlook on political matters is a feature of their heritage of medieval independence. Even to peasants and herdsmen, the close, convivial world of the giudicati had great advantages over the more exploitative rule of Pisans, Genoese, Aragonese and Spaniards, and the Sardinians never forgot that they had once been in charge of their own destinies. The long wars for independence of Mariano IV and Eleonora of Arborea against Aragon created a sense of nationhood that never entirely disappeared, even though the Sardinians lost."

"Sardinians as a race are prone to a very non latin, almost celtic wistfulness and melancholy."

"People inevitably think of themselves as Sardinian first and Italian second (or sometimes even third, after European). A book written once about Sardinia was entitled The Unconquered Island, and it's true. Invaded and exploited it has been, yes, but not conquered."

"In the late 1800s, Europe had a peaceable bull’s-eye in the northern industrialized countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Low Countries), bordered by slightly stroppier Ireland, Austria-Hungary, and Finland, surrounded in turn by still more violent Spain, Italy, Greece, and the Slavic countries. Today the peaceable center has swelled to encompass all of Western and Central Europe, but a gradient of lawlessness extending to Eastern Europe and the mountainous Balkans is still visible. There are gradients within each of these countries as well: the hinterlands and mountains remained violent long after the urbanized and densely farmed centers had calmed down. Clan warfare was endemic to the Scottish highlands until the 18th century, and to Sardinia, Sicily, Montenegro, and other parts of the Balkans until the 20th. It’s no coincidence that the two blood-soaked classics with which I began this book—the Hebrew Bible and the Homeric poems—came from peoples that lived in rugged hills and valleys."

"Sardinia is out of time and history."

"There is not in Italy what there is in Sardinia, nor in Sardinia what there is in Italy."

"Vorrebbe mangiar la foccaccia e trovarla in tasca."

"Chi ha fatto il mala, faccia la penitenza."

"Chi ha capo di cera non vada al sole."

"Chi ha bisogno, domandi."

"‘’Chi ha bisogna s’arrenda.’’"

"Chi è assente ha sempre torto."

"Chi due lepri caccia, l'una non piglia, e l'altra lascia."

"Chi disordani da giovane se ne pente da vecchio."

"Chi di gatta nasce, sorci piglia."

"Chi di gallina nasce, convien che razzoli."

"Chi da se stesso può fare alcuna cosa, non aspetti che altri la faccia."

"Chi dà presto dà due volte."

"Chi ben commincia è alla metà dell’opra."

"Chi aspettar suole, ha ciò che vuole."

"Chi ama me, ama il mio cane."

"Chi affoga s'attaccherrebbe alle funi del cielo"