Sciascia Leonardo Quotes & Sayings

It's like squeezing tripe: nothing comes out,' he said, meaning the Colasberna brothers, their partners, the town in general and Sicily as a whole. — Leonardo Sciascia

All of Sicily is a dimension of the imagination. — Leonardo Sciascia

Learning to wear a mask (that word already embedded in the term "masculinity") is the first lesson in patriarchal masculinity that a boy learns. He learns that his core feelings cannot be expressed if they do not conform to the acceptable behaviors sexism defines as male. Asked to give up the true self in order to realize the patriarchal ideal, boys learn self-betrayal early and are rewarded for these acts of soul murder. — Bell Hooks

There can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school-room is either moral or it is a degrading force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence my argument is as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the American Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot be teacher. — Robert Dabney

There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer. — Leonardo Sciascia

Scientists say that the palm tree line, that is the climate suitable to growth of the palm, is moving north, five hundred metres, I think it was, every year ... The palm tree line ... I call it the coffee line, the strong black coffee line ... It's rising like mercury in a thermometer, this palm tree line, this strong coffee line, this scandal line, rising up throughout Italy and already passed Rome ... — Leonardo Sciascia

Reality is always richer, more unpredictable than our deductions — Leonardo Sciascia

Are you there? I call for you.
I've been calling your name,
Searching every place in my mind to find you,
I've lost count of the days, the hours, minutes, and seconds.
The world that looked so vast is now small and empty.
Did you take all the magic with you?
Or perhaps the world is in pain like my heart because it's lost your spark. — LeAnne Mechelle

A sort of melancholy, and regret, seizes us every time we meet a sophisticated, adulterated idiot. Oh the nice fools of yestertime! Genuine, natural. Like homemade bread. — Leonardo Sciascia

The truth is at the bottom of a well. You look in a well, and you see the sun or the moon, but if you jump in, there's no longer the sun or the moon; there's the truth. Leonardo Sciascia — Leonardo Sciascia

All great undertakings are achieved through mighty obstacles. Keep up the deepest mental poise. Take not even the slightest notice of what puerile creatures may be saying against you. — Swami Vivekananda

The art of listening needs its highest development in listening to oneself; our most important task is to develop an ear that can really hear what we're saying. — Sydney J. Harris

No one should walk into a party and have a stamp that says 'mayor' or 'businessman' on their head. Everyone is just there to have a good time. — Desiree Rogers

Maybe the whole of italy is becoming a sort of Sicily. — Leonardo Sciascia

Availability of the best also is limited in our culture. And it's also extremely expensive. It's ridiculous. A kilogram of rose oil costs me very much. By the time it is shipped here and we pay tariffs, how much more do I have to charge the consumer? And then who could afford to buy it? That is why people sell synthetic rose and end up poisoning themselves. It shouldn't be that way. — Horst Rechelbacher

The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians' State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter. — Leonardo Sciascia

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse. — Isaac Asimov

Translation is the other side of a tapestry. — Leonardo Sciascia

Dear Commendatory Roomers, you have no idea how many people-serious, decently behaved, cultivated people- go looking for the company of whores — Leonardo Sciascia

... And the sound of the sea, like the wild-animal breath of the world itself, frightened them as it gasped and died at their feet. — Leonardo Sciascia

I hate and detest Sicily in so far as I love it, and in so far as it does not respond to the kind of love I would like to have for it. — Leonardo Sciascia

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything. — Aesop