All Quotes

"I just have to let the world know how grateful I am."

"Well, I always believed that we all come from some kind of influence. I definitely have a lot of influences and my music came from that."

"To this day, I just feel really blessed to even have gotten here. Whether it’s music I create or consume, it has brought me so much healing. So, it will always be an honor and a privilege knowing that the words I wrote down in my notebook during days I needed an outlet have brought comfort to people’s lives."

"I almost changed direction until I realized spring means growth, and growth is often uncomfortable. … What was supposedly a seven-track album is now eighteen [tracks long] and counting. … But it’s almost sprouting. And I can’t wait for you to hear them all."

"I used to think my acting awards were my greatest achievements, but I now think it's choosing the right projects and the right scripts, scripts with a purpose. Projects with a purpose."

"The Saviour arose into heaven through His own power as Lord and Creator...Mary arose into heaven lifted up by grace, not through her own power. This is why one is called Ascension and the other Assumption."

"One of my head pizzaiolos, Laura Meyer, has lived and studied in Italy and speaks fluently. So when the world championships in , Italy, rolled around, she was excited to give it a shot. We flew over together and planned her entry in the pizza in teglia ("," or what we would call ) division. I advised her not to go too off the wall—Italians don't love that, especially from Americans—but to add a little twist that would be just creative enough. Laura settled on a classic pizza alla diavola, which is made with whole milk , , and slices of the spicy oblong known as soppressata picante. Her clever addition was a scattering of on top of the finished pizza. Tasting the mildness of the Italian mozzarella, she decided to blend in a bit of ' for extra flavor. And because we were in Parma, she finished her creation with shavings of , and some for good measure. ... In addition to a title she will hold all her life, she won a , a of , and a five-kilo block of Parmesan cheese, which she hand-carried all the way back home. ..."

"Found a culture, have you Rita? Found a better song to sing? No, you found a different song to sing, and on your lips it's shrill and hollow and tuneless."

"Did you know that Macbeth was a maggoty apple? Not many people know that!"

"In reply to the question "Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt", you have written, quote: "Do it on the radio." Unquote."

"I did join in the singing. But when I turned around, me mother had stopped singin', and she was cryin'. I said, 'Why are you cryin', Mother?' And she said, 'There must be better songs to sing than this.' And I thought, yeah - that's what I'm trying to do, isn't it? Sing a better song."

"Christ! Me customer! She's still under the dryer. She only wanted a demi-wave, she'll come out lookin' like a friggin' muppet!"

"I'm beginning to find me. It's great. It is, you know, Frank. It might sound selfish, but all I want for the time being is what I'm finding inside me."

"Sometimes students end up being the best teachers."

"I know my mother loved me. She just loved liquor more."

"Ethan Herisse - Elwood"

"Brandon Wilson - Turner"

"Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor - Hattie"

"Hamish Linklater - Spencer"

"Fred Hechinger - Harper"

"Jimmie Fails - Mr. Hill"

"(About the television programme “”Canzonissima“”) A programme that will have forty million viewers, i.e. all the Italians who will be stuck at home due to the restrictions adopted to deal with the energy crisis."

"(About the conclusion of the broadcasts of “”Canzonissima“”) They realised that they had to stop fighting battles at the expense of the singers and that, as a show, the singing competition was long over."

"A guest who made things difficult for me? Only one, Roberto Benigni, whom I love too much, though. The first time he came on the show, while they were filming us from the waist up, he gave me a sharp blow to the genitals with his hand that left me breathless."

"I must thank Silvio Berlusconi who was a man of great sensitivity, as he perfectly understood my state of mind: those who portray him as a ruthless tough guy are lying, he is a very humane person who understands everything."

"(About the Pooh) Eternally dedicated to success."

"Mino was fortunate because he got what he wanted out of life, going from anonymity in the southern provinces to the most important stages in the world of entertainment, where he became a leading figure in his own right."

"Mino Reitano was a great guy, stubborn, the classic immigrant with a great desire to succeed, exuberant, likeable."

"Me and Bruno Vespa, who co-hosted with me, were awarded the “'TeleRatto 2011”' prize for worst television duo. We really deserved it. There was no worse duo than us."

"An important woman and exceptional artist, Alida Chelli, actress, singer, dancer, sensational artist, who,"

"(About Alida Chelli) She rose to fame singing in a film by Pietro Germi, Un maledetto imbroglio, a song written by her father Carlo Rustichelli. The song was called Sinnò me moro and was a huge hit. She was a talented singer and dancer. She was absolutely the greatest Rosetta in Rugantino. However, she was always unsure of her abilities. Everyone wanted her, but she turned down the parts."

"(About Alida Chelli) She was ill, she fought and suffered a great deal: she no longer liked herself, she didn't want to be seen, I only heard from her on the phone, who knows, perhaps in the end death was a liberation. However, Simone was by her side, in love with his mother."

"Our land has suffered much moral and material devastation. Even nature has sometimes raged against our land through earthquakes. Yet what has remained intact? An infinite beauty, unique in the world, has remained. Just travel around our Sicily, the coasts, the interior of Sicily, to discover a beauty that our ancestors, our forefathers, have left us as a legacy, perhaps confident that we would respect this nature, that we would exalt it... which we have not done. This land, without a future, is dead, finished, gone, and young people will find nothing but rubble and devastation. “My bitter land”, bitter... and beautiful. Beauty will prevail, I am sure. Beauty will triumph."

"Sicily needs a cultural revolution. It has top-level professionals, teachers, doctors and architects, but they don't get their hands dirty with politics and have delegated it to these professional politicians."

"Sicilian beauties have an extra gear determined by historical factors. Mixed blood and the stratification of different dominations have mixed genes to such an extent that they have produced different combinations. [...] Contrary to tradition, we produce very tall women who are growing taller and taller, with physical characteristics ranging from raven-haired to blonde, with hazel, green and blue eyes, depending on whether Arab, Spanish or Norman characteristics predominate."

"(About Matteo Salvini) He speaks properly, he's a rhetorician. But he doesn't convince me. He went to Sicily, to Mineo, where there are reception centres, and organised a Southern League when his League was founded as an anti-terrorist organisation. Suddenly, he embraced the southern cause. He did so to broaden his voter base. Then Salvini imagines a country blocked at its borders, which is no longer conceivable. Anyway, we Sicilians are used to being invaded. First Grillo arrived by swimming, and nothing changed. Now Salvini himself has arrived."

"Roberto Vecchioni is a betrayed lover, which is why he said that phrase: his is an appeal for love, not an indictment of Sicily. There is beauty in Sicily; Sicily is beautiful. Of course, Vecchioni could have avoided generalising, but I am convinced that he already regrets having uttered those words. Long live the good and beautiful Sicily that exists."

"I was having dinner at the Dollaro, a restaurant in Milan that cost 660 lire, the equivalent of one dollar. Instead of spaghetti, the waiter brought a guitar and started singing. ‘What a voice!’ I thought. It was Al Bano. During the day he worked at Breda, in the evening he waited tables. I told him to come to Rai the next morning."

"Interviewer: Which Sicilian writer do you love the most? Baudo: There are many, from Capuana to Verga, whose I Malavoglia I love very much. Then there is Pirandello, before whom one should kneel. And how can we forget Leonardo Sciascia? I knew him personally and we had a good friendship; I spent days with him. He was shy. I remember once I had to present an event in Mondello to award him and he asked me if there was a way to do it without doing it publicly. It was hard to convince him to go on stage! He was the one who discovered Tomasi di Lampedusa. He called Sellerio, a publishing house in Palermo, which published his book."

"Sicily is extraordinary, there is so much to see, it is a heritage of beauty and culture. When you arrive in Messina, a few kilometres away is Taormina, then Catania for its Baroque architecture, continue on to Syracuse, which in addition to its Baroque architecture has an important Greek history, it is sensational. Then Noto, Modica and Ragusa. The latter city has always had extraordinary beauty that was previously ignored, and thanks to Montalbano, the entire province of Ragusa has had a major revival from a tourist point of view. Then there is the western part, Mazara del Vallo, the island of Mozia. Then there is Agrigento with its temples, Segesta and then Palermo. In short, Sicily is worth visiting, it is extraordinary."

"I arrived in Rome in 1959. Italy was celebrating, there was an atmosphere of happiness and a zest for life. Those years were too good to be true. Italians were happy, every initiative was successful. Those years will never return. The Fiat 600 was the dream of Italians, in fact it was the consolation prize on “'Lascia o raddoppia?”' I owned a 500, bought in 36 instalments. I had just arrived in Rome, but I had to keep up appearances. I still don't know how I managed to get in: every time, I had to open the roof to do so."

"The new is an obsession; there is no such thing as something new. Sometimes when you do something old, you don't do it as you used to, but you do it with a rhythm, a cadence and a language that are modern. Yesterday and today do not exist as artistic categories; there is only what is beautiful or ugly."

"Talking about Marcello Marchesi is exciting because rarely has a person been so rich in professional qualities, so capable of ranging across every field of entertainment. (p. 124)"

"With all these titles, Marchesi could have put on airs, but instead he was a very simple man, always ready to welcome young authors and constantly on the lookout for new talent. His motto was: speak up, even if you're talking rubbish, something will stick. (p. 124)"

"Maurizio Costanzo used a soft tone, asking even the most uncomfortable questions gently, but it was impossible to dodge his questions. Costanzo, as a secular confessor, did not pass judgement, but left everything to the viewer's discretion. (p. 134)"

"Ed Crowley - Mr. Phillips"

"Steven Hill - Donald Patterson"

"Augusta Dabney - Abigail Patterson"

"L. M. Kit Carson - Gus Winant"

"David Margulies - Dr. Jonah Reiff"