I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. There must be some human truth that is beyond religion.

There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape.

The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.

Life is such an effort, Child. It's a war that is renewed each day, and its moments of joy are brief parentheses for which you pay a cruel price.

I met Indira Gandhi in her office in the government palace. The same office that had been her father's - large, cold and plain. She was sitting, small and slender, behind a bare desk. When I entered, she got up and came forward to give me her hand, then sat down again and cut the preliminaries short by fixing me with a gaze that meant: Go ahead with the first question, don't waste time, I really have no time to waste.

I've found what I was looking for, Child: what people call love between a man and a woman is a season. And if, at its flowering, this season is a feast of greenery, at its waning, it's only a heap of rotting leaves.

You belong neither to God nor the state nor me. You belong to yourself and no one else.