Marriage with love is entering heaven with one's eyes shut, but marriage without love is entering hell with them open.

We all try to be alike in our youth, and individual in our middle age ... although we sometimes mistake eccentricity for individuality.

Theatrical work means too much work or none.

Many people with a wild desire to act prove failures on the stage, their inclinations are greater than their powers. Rarely is it the other way.

Adversity is the touchstone of character: it is not in success but in misfortune that hidden powers bear fruit.

No Southern people ever seem to possess the energy of their Northern brothers, and in Sicily a dolce far niente life is much enjoyed. Time is no object. According to Pliny, Aristhomacus watched the life of the bee carefully for fifty-eight years, which is just the sort of work a Sicilian of to-day would like.

Civilisation makes us all as alike as peas in a pod, and it is the very uncouth - uncivilised, if you will - element which individualises nations.