All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black.

Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.

I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.

The cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.

What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?

Sometimes my characters are not myself.

When you are on the dancefloor, there is nothing to do but dance.