Paolo Quotes & Sayings

I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genetics of our food supply is a really compelling thing to me. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Mahlia knew the many voices of war from her father's chant. — Paolo Bacigalupi

my religion was but a fragrance. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before. — Paolo Giordano

Every professional footballer should seek to play at least one game at Celtic Park. I have never felt anything like it. — Paolo Maldini

At some point, you realize you can't provide a perfectly monolithic description of a foreign culture's future any more than you can provide a monolithic description of your own hometown's future. Your choices about what to emphasize and what to leave out make all the difference, and ultimately, your fingerprints and biases and viewpoints are going to be all over the story. — Paolo Bacigalupi

In my work, I present questions and concerns. [It's] the opportunity to put a system of antibodies into circulation, without any pretense of making the world a better place, but to start a conversation with the world. — Paolo Pellegrin

Hell, we're all bullet bait sooner or later. Doubt it makes much difference. You make it to sixteen, you're a goddamn legend. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Love makes you weak. It distracts you from the important things. It can make you lose sight of the objective.
-Uncle Paolo — Jessica Khoury

We cannot treat people with a right to asylum the same way as people from a safe country. They need to be sent back. That is, from our perspective, completely clear. On the other hand, we should scrutinize the now completely outdated principle that only the migrants' first country of arrival should be burdened with their registration as well as with the process of sorting out who has the right to asylum and who needs to be deported. — Paolo Gentiloni

It's not Love. But what fault is it of mine
if my affections do not become
Love? Very much my fault, I would say,
when I can live from day to day
on mad purity, blind pity ...
Make a scandal of meekness.
But the violence of the senses and intellect
that has confounded me for years
was the only way. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

We need to have lectures about why we can't have every day things like mayonnaise, ketchup and coke. — Paolo Di Canio

Who the *&^$* is "Paolo"? — Daniel Way

You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said.
"How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes."
"Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore. — Paolo Giordano

They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other's, through their arms and fingers ... There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed. — Paolo Giordano

We're all happier when we know less, because the details are frightening and haven't really improved much. The more you pay attention, the more horrifying the world is. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Everyone in China knows The Topics. The television stations and newspapers run the same state-generated stories all across the country, and the Chinese form their opinions based on these somewhat controlled sources. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. — Paolo Giordano

Maggot twitch, some people called it. If you'd seen much of the war, you had it. Some more. Some less. But everybody had it. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Lock it away," the half-man whispered. "You feel, after. Not now. Now you are a soldier. Now you do your duty for your pack. If you break, your Mouse will die, and you with him. Feel, after. Not now. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Nothing lasts forever, Iho.
So let lola have her hug, okay? — Paolo Chikiamco

When I was a kid. I never really had luck with the ladies my early years in high school. Then I started singing and I found that helped, so I would go in the talent show every year. It was always some female singer that would go up there and blast out some Celine Dion classic and just blow me away. — Paolo Nutini

Mouse took an idle whack at some kudzu as he passed, but his face was serious. "Hell, I don't know. Why do you care? That was right after our farm burned. They got everyone. Mom and Dad. Simon. Shane got recruited. I saw that. They shot Simon because he was too little, but they took Shane." He knocked aside more kudzu. "Maybe I was hoping they'd just shoot me and get it over with. I was so sick of hiding and scavenging. I think I wanted the bullet. — Paolo Bacigalupi

If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around." He — Paolo Bacigalupi

For me as a kid, reading cyberpunk was like seeing the world for the first time. Gibson's Neuromancer wasn't just stylistically stunning; it felt like the template for a future that we were actively building. I remember reading Sterling's Islands in the Net and suddenly understanding the disruptive potential of technology once it got out into the street. Cyberpunk felt urgent. It wasn't the future 15 minutes out-it was the future sideswiping you and leaving you in a full-body cast as it passed by. — Paolo Bacigalupi

As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Anderson takes a shuddering breath, forcing away the memories. She is the opposite of the invasive plagues he fights every day. A hothouse flower, dropped into a world too harsh for her delicate heritage. It seems unlikely that she will survive for long. Not in this climate. Not with these people. Perhaps it was that vulnerability that moved him, her pretended strength when she had nothing at all. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Her father would return from China. He'd come back with all his soldiers. He'd pick her up in his strong arms and say that he'd never meant to leave, that he hadn't meant to sail away and leave her and her mother alone in the canals of the Drowned Cities as the Army of God and the UPF and the Freedom Militia came down like a hammer on every single person who'd ever trafficked with the peacekeepers. A stupid little dream for a stupid little war maggot. Mahlia hated herself for dreaming it. But sometimes she curled in on herself and held the stump of her right hand to her chest and pretended that none of it had happened. That her father was still here, and she still had a hand, and everything was going to get better. — Paolo Bacigalupi

You get worked up about what's right and wrong, but that shit's only in your head. Rules are what the big dogs say they are. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Perhaps the old lady had kidnapped Michela, had found her in the park and taken her away, because she had a violent desire for a little girl but couldn't have children. Her womb was defective or else she was unwilling to make a bit of room in it.
Just like me, thought Alice. — Paolo Giordano

Let's be honest. We're not Manchester United or Arsenal, are we? — Paolo Di Canio

She and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other. — Paolo Giordano

Doctor Mahfouz was always yammering on about how everyone had humanity in them. From Mahlia's experience, the doctor was sliding high, but now, as she looked at this sergeant named Ocho, she wondered if there was some bit of softness in this hard scarred boy that she might be able to work. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Denis's love for Mattia had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent. — Paolo Giordano

The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies. — Paolo Bacigalupi

It was like being wrapped in a sheet, all white, nothing but white, above, below, all around you. It was the exact opposite of darkness, but it frightened Alice in precisely the same way. — Paolo Giordano

When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Do you really like studying?"
Mattia nodded.
"Why?"
"It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing. — Paolo Giordano

Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle. — Paolo Bacigalupi

They had passed through them in a state of apnoea, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and they had noticed that it didn't make a big difference. — Paolo Giordano

It's normal that there be fear, in every man, the important thing is that it be accompanied by courage — Paolo Borsellino

The sexual freedom of today for most people is really only a convention, an obligation, a social duty, a social anxiety, a necessary feature of the consumer's way of life. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

There had been three priests, proponents of so-called liberation theology. They had opposed the reactionary tide from Rome. And in all three cases the IEA had done the dirty work for Iwaszkiewicz and his Congregation. Corona, Ortega, and Souza were prominent progressive priests working in marginal dioceses, poor districts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. They believed in saving man here on earth, not waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

But his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them — Paolo Giordano

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her. — Paolo Giordano

It does not matter whether I am in Hong Kong or Sao Paolo - people always want to talk about toxic bosses and what to do about them. — Srikumar Rao

I want to be 82 and doing movies with Paolo Sorrentino where people are like, "This is gold." — Ed Speleers

Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well. — Paolo Bacigalupi

You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life. — Paulo Coelho

Mattia was startled to find that he still had instincts, buried beneath the dense network of thoughts and abstractions that had woven itself around him. — Paolo Giordano

Thanks to the centrifugal pump, places like Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas had thrown on the garments of fertility for a century, pretending to greenery and growth as they mined glacial water from ten-thousand-year-old aquifers. They'd played dress-up-in-green and pretended it could last forever. They'd pumped up the Ice Age and spread it across the land, and for a while they'd turned their dry lands lush. Cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans
vast green acreages, all because someone could get a pump going. Those places had dreamed of being different from what they were. They'd had aspirations. And then the water ran out, and they fell back, realizing too late that their prosperity was borrowed, and there would be no more coming. — Paolo Bacigalupi

It is only logical that the pauperization of our soul and the soul of society coincide with the pauperization of the environment. One is the cause and the reflection of the other. — Paolo Soleri

If we can't describe our reality accurately, we can't see it. — Paolo Bacigalupi

We are not perfect. But we have doubtlessly fulfilled our obligations to the EU to a greater degree than the EU has its obligations to Italy, when it comes to the relocation or repatriation of refugees that are in our country. Italy does its homework better than the rest of Europe. Instead of the 160,000 migrants that were to be distributed across Europe, we are currently at 300. — Paolo Gentiloni

Suicide is not something I owe you or yours. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Poor as the poor I cling,
like them, to humiliating hopes;
like them, each day I nearly kill myself
just to live. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.' — Paolo Bacigalupi

Her whispering lips brushed his ear.
She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God...she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum Karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering...
He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Of course, the more you read, the more you learn, and ultimately there is more information than you can ever use. The difficulty is that as an outsider, you know you're too ignorant for your own good, and so the urge to keep researching and *never* start writing is pretty strong. — Paolo Bacigalupi

There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings. — Paolo Bacigalupi

A gamble. Everything was a damn gamble. Betting against luck and the Fates, again and again, and again. She kept walking, waiting for the bullet. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Belief." He snorted. "I could kiss a thousand crosses. Fucking belief. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I can say that Thiago Silva has no rival in his position. He is by far the best defender in the world. It's a compliment for me to be compared to him. — Paolo Maldini

I used to love reading, but since I've started writing, it's harder for me to immerse, because I spend so much time looking at how the story is structured and trying to see what the author is doing behind the curtain. — Paolo Bacigalupi

It's still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we'd be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We'd be rich and they'd be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They're all full of it. Nothing balances out. — Paolo Bacigalupi

The archaeologists who will come and blow away the ashes from our house will unearth only the metal parts of the sophisticated furnishings, and it will take them some time to reconstruct their original beauty; they will find very few objects and almost no embellishments, not even in Emanuele's room, which from year to year is being emptied of toys and colors, because everything that's important to him is now found in the circuits of a tablet. I wonder what would suggest to them that a couple and then a family had lived in those rooms and that they were happy together, at least for long stretches of time. — Paolo Giordano

Every day my anxiety is higher,
every day the grief more mortal.
Today more than yesterday terror exalts me ... — Pier Paolo Pasolini

He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything. — Paolo Giordano

It'll get easier, Paolo said.
But I knew that. That was the worst part. The worst part was that eventually you forgot about the people you loved. The dead ones and the ones who raised you and the ones you wanted to be with at the end of the day. — Maggie Stiefvater

That is the nature of our beasts and plagues. They are not dumb machines to be driven about. They have their own needs and hungers. Their own evolutionary demands. They must mutate and adapt, and so you will never be done with me, and when I am gone, what will you do then? We have released demons upon the world, and your walls are only as good as my intellect. Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be? — Paolo Bacigalupi

I don't believe we shall ever again have any form of society in which men will be free. One should not hope for it. One should not hope for anything. Hope is invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

The way I work with my cinematographer is not based on general principles, but the ideas are triggered by the locations where we shoot. — Paolo Sorrentino

Running. She was always running. Like a rabbit chased by coywolv. Always hunting for some new safe bolt hole, and every time, the soldier boys found her, and forced her to rabbit again. The doctor was wrong. There was no place to hide, and she'd never be safe as long as she remained close to the Drowned Cities. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Save your shaming for the girl, Doctor. If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago." He turned and started wading into the swamp. "Time is passing. I, for one, have no intention of remaining here for your betrayer to bring back the soldiers and their guns. — Paolo Bacigalupi

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing. — Paolo Giordano

I'd say for those people who don't feel like they fit in, I'd want them to ask themselves why they want to, who they are trying to please, and whether or not those people are worth it. You know what they say: 'If they don't want you, then they don't deserve to have you.' — Connor Paolo

People with ambition want Paolo Di Canio. — Paolo Di Canio

You can't know its mind, and you can't control it. This creature is nothing but war incarnate. If you traffic with it, you bring war into your house, and violence down upon yourself. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I am a fascist, not a racist. — Paolo Di Canio

Life's temptations have the purpose of putting our spiritual integrity to the test. To yield to them, however, gives one a precarious and tormented satisfaction. But the worst temptations are those we give in to without getting anything in return except for the brutal discovery of our weakness. — Paolo Maurensig

The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province. — Paolo Bacigalupi

If I was strategic, I would have figured out how to get out of this place. Would have seen everything falling apart and got out while there were still ships to sail. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Rome is a city I love very much. I have lived there since I was a child. — Paolo Sorrentino

Death does determine life. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

Death does determine life. Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' - a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in. — Paolo Pellegrin

Food should come from the place of its origin, and stay there. It shouldn't spend its time crisscrossing the globe for the sake of profit. — Paolo Bacigalupi

What the hell are those?" Zach pushed at my foot with his finger.

"My boots."

"It looks like your foot's being attacked by a Muppet. — Theresa Paolo

Over the past year, since breaking up with Martin, she had begun to notice the foreignness of the place, to suffer from the chill that dried her skin and never really left her, even in the summer. And yet she couldn't make up her mind to leave. She depended on the place now; she had grown attached to it with the obstinacy with which people become attached only to things that hurt them. — Paolo Giordano

In the distance, a building explodes in flame. She has over a hundred men working this district, letting everyone feel the pain of real enforcement. Laws are a fine thing on paper, but painful when no bribery can ease their bind. People have forgotten this. — Paolo Bacigalupi

She'd survived the Drowned Cities because she wasn't anything like Mouse. When the bullets started flying and warlords started making examples of peacekeeper collaborators, Mahlia had kept her head down, instead of standing up like Mouse. She'd looked out for herself, first. And because of that, she'd survived. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Mattia stayed right where he was, feeling those clothes that weren't his, but with the pleasant sensation of disappearing into them. — Paolo Giordano

which general has decided to betray Pracha. — Paolo Bacigalupi

The idea made Mahlia's chest tighten. It was her own fantasy, the secret one she sometimes curled up to when she went to bed, knowing that it was stupid, but still wanting it, wanting it to somehow all make sense. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Down an alley a washing woman has set out laundry in pans near the rubble of an old high-rise. Another is washing her body, carefully scrubbing under her sarong, its fabric clinging to her skin. Children run naked through the dirt, jumping over bits of broken concrete that were laid down more than a hundred years ago in the old Expansion. Far down the street the levees rise, holding back the sea. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Some things, it was better not to think about. It just made you mad and angry. — Paolo Bacigalupi

The thing is, even though you think a lot about your movie, and there's a lot of preparation behind it, the final end result completely goes beyond it. It's not something you're aware of. — Paolo Sorrentino

Jesus walked on water, so maybe he makes aquifers, too. — Paolo Bacigalupi

If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

Rome is a city where in every corner you have a reminder of the sacred world. That's why I have sacred music, minimalist sacred music, which is also music I like, because at the end of the day, that's what I want to do. — Paolo Sorrentino