A real writer [...] looks not in another writer but himself.

The only advice that I'm in the mood to give - and that I give regularly - to young people is this: fight for what you believe in. You will lose, just like I have lost, all the battles. But only one you may win. The one that you engage every morning, in front of the mirror.

Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.

Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.

Men do not know how to appreciate and measure luck except that of others. Their own never.

[Addressed to Berlusconi who wanted to impose himself on the editorial style of "Il Giornale"] In the art of entrepeneurship, you are certainly a genius, and I an asshole. But in the art of argument the genius is me, and you the asshole.

An Italian university is a contradiction in terms.