I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.

I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.

I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them!

Dante Alighieri was not only a Christian poet or a priest, he was a man. He was a real poet. We can understand that the goal of Divine Comedy is beauty. You don't need also to understand Italian or to know Italian, because when Dante's writing, when we recite Dante out loud, it explodes a cosmos of illumination like to recite music, a symphony.

To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.

When I first saw a Fellini movie, I came out of the movie theatre and decided to become a lawyer! I thought to myself, it's impossible to make something so beautiful!

Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.