All of Sicily is a dimension of the imagination.

The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry.

The truth is at the bottom of a well. You look in a well, and you see the sun or the moon, but if you jump in, there's no longer the sun or the moon; there's the truth. Leonardo Sciascia

A sort of melancholy, and regret, seizes us every time we meet a sophisticated, adulterated idiot. Oh the nice fools of yestertime! Genuine, natural. Like homemade bread.

I hate and detest Sicily in so far as I love it, and in so far as it does not respond to the kind of love I would like to have for it.

Reality is always richer, more unpredictable than our deductions

…And the sound of the sea, like the wild-animal breath of the world itself, frightened them as it gasped and died at their feet.

No one ever said you can’t have world dominance and a little romance too.

Yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep.

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.

The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

U.S. policy toward the third world should be one of depopulation

Nature, or at least birds and women, abhorred the invisible man.

Why should any of these things that happen externally distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing: cease roving to and fro.

When you stand still, you reject the struggle, and you refuse to change and grow. Ultimately, you reject fulfillment, happiness, the dance for joy and everything else that is eternally good.

I'm like the universe; either expanding or contracting at any given moment. The most that I had put on was about 35, 36 pounds, and I've taken all of that off.

If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.