It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief.

If you talked or laughed in church, told lies, had impure thoughts or conversations, you were bad; if you obeyed your parents or guardians, went to confession and communion regularly, said prayers for the dead, you were good.

For me, in fact, the mark of the historic is the nonchalance with which it picks up an individual and deposits him in a trend, like a house playfully moved by a tornado.

Anybody who has ever tried to rectify an injustice or set a record straight comes to feel that he is going mad.

Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.

it's easier to forgive your enemies than to forgive your friends.

Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."