Organised brigandage has ceased to exist, but murder and highway robbery are still far too common in the less frequented districts. Travellers rarely suffer to-day, however. It is the wealthy inhabitants who run risks at the hand of the mafia, or lawless Sicilian.

He who buys what he does not want ends in wanting what he cannot buy.

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

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

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.

Theatrical work means too much work or none.

Few authors are so interesting as their work - they generally reserve their wit or trenchant sarcasm for their books.