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7582bc5
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And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening benediction.
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venice
italy
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Donna Leon |
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4c17765
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Though he did not believe, he was not untouched by the magic of belief ...
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Donna Leon |
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e0a132c
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Oh, so seldom does fate cast our enemy into our hands, to do with as we will
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Donna Leon |
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0726446
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He hesitated then, anticipating the panic that came when there was nothing left to read
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Donna Leon |
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0f154d2
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We buy things. We wear them or put them on our walls, or sit on them, but anyone who wants to can take them away from us. Or break them. ... Long after he's dead, someone else will own those stupid little boxes, and then someone after him, just as someone owned them before he did. But no one ever thinks of that: objects survive us and go on living. It's stupid to believe we own them. And it's sinful for them to be so important.
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death
possessions
ownership
materialism
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Donna Leon |
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315a77e
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How beautiful, the grace of women; how soft their charity.
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Donna Leon |
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c49ab54
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Why are other people's prejudices so strange, while our own are so thought-out and reasonable?
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Donna Leon |
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1531bb3
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Vianello had the knack of getting people to talk. Especially if they were Venetians, the people he interviewed invariably warmed to this large, sweet-tempered man who gave every appearance of speaking Italian reluctantly, who was only too glad to lapse into their common dialect, a linguistic change that often carried its speakers along to unconscious revelation.
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Donna Leon |
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84e36f9
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He looked down at the glass again. 'I care that these things happen, that we poison ourselves and our progeny, that we knowingly destroy our future, but I do not believe that there is anything - and I repeat, anything - that can be done to prevent it. We are a nation of egoists. It is our glory, but it will be our destruction, for none of us can be made to concern ourselves about something as abstract as "the common good". The best of us ca..
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Donna Leon |
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747e39b
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Though everyone in the bar knew who he was, no one asked him about the death, though one old man did rustle his newspaper suggestively.
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mystery
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Donna Leon |
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edb7157
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And will knowing what she reads make you know who she is?" "Can you think of a better way to tell?"
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reading
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Donna Leon |
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f0b7f9b
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She believed that books served as a mirror of the person who accumulated them.
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Donna Leon |
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8cfdc40
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I read books, not minds, Guido.
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Donna Leon |
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410c0d7
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Perception of personal danger very often set people on the path of virtue.
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virtue
morality
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Donna Leon |
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d7abd59
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For reasons he had never understood, she read a different newspaper each morning, spanning the political spectrum from right to left, and languages from French to English. Years ago, when he had first met her and understood her even less, he had asked about this. Her response, he came to realize only years later, made perfect sense: 'I want to see how many different ways the same lies can be told.' Nothing he had read in the ensuing years h..
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Donna Leon |
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de43318
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Once, walking with him, Paola had stopped and asked him what he was thinking about, and the fact that she was the only person in the world he would not be embarrassed to tell just what it was he had been thinking about at that moment convinced him, though a thousand things had already done so, that this was the woman he wanted to marry, had to marry, would marry.
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Donna Leon |
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77e62dd
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Only the good deserve to hope.
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Donna Leon |
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b16902d
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Most people -- however much they might deny it -- had an idea of what they were getting into when they got into it.
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intention
trouble
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Donna Leon |
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9172c18
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Her mask gave no sign of how this affected her.
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mask
expression
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Donna Leon |
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a2bbe29
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You really love to gossip, don't you?" he asked, wishing she had brought him a glass of wine. "Yes, I suppose I do," she answered, sounding surprised at the realization. "You think that's why I love reading novels so much?"
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reading
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Donna Leon |
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bddb22c
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Women don't use knives,' Griffoni answered, reciting it as though she were Euclid listing another axiom. Although he agreed with her, Brunetti was curious about the basis for her belief. 'You offering proof of that?' 'Kitchens,' she said laconically. 'Kitchens?' 'The knives are kept in the kitchen, and their husbands pass through there every day, countless times, yet very few of them get stabbed. That's because women don't use knives, and t..
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Donna Leon |
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59fc6b0
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We never know them well. Do we?" "Who?" "Real people." "What do you mean, real people?" "As opposed to people in books," Paola explained. "They're the only ones we ever know well. Or know truly."
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Donna Leon |
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989084c
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when scores of indicted criminals sit in parliament who could believe in the rule of law...
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Donna Leon |
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ca9d54f
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Brunetti had long been of the opinion that one of the handicaps of stupidity was its inability to imagine intelligence.
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Donna Leon |
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12612f2
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Life had taught him to be profoundly suspicious of coincidence, and it had similarly taught him to view any seemingly random conjunction of events or persons as coincidence and thus be suspicious of that, as well.
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randomness
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Donna Leon |
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398a694
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He dealt every day with people who believed they weren't happy and who further believed that by committing some crime--theft, murder, deceit, blackmail, even kidnapping--they would find the magic elixir that would transform the perceived misery of their lives into that most desired of states: happiness
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Donna Leon |
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7952a56
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She became his Ariadne, leading him through the labyrinth of books, stopping now and then to pass another one to him.
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mythology
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Donna Leon |
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fb0a16d
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His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.
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Donna Leon |
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1a4e172
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Ella sonrio por primera vez y, de repente, su cara dejo de ser vulgar.
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Donna Leon |
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3c8d1a4
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South. `But no name?, 'No, Guido. But I'll keep
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Donna Leon |
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682441f
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As if sensing his attention, Paola turned her head towards him and allowed her eyes to close and then open slowly, as though she'd been told that the Crucifixion had only just begun and there still remained a number of nails. The
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Donna Leon |
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bcf9617
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Italian to the core, he did not for an instant doubt that a man could be passionately devoted to the wife he betrayed with other women.
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Donna Leon |
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09832bc
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He hesitated then, anticipating the panic that came when there was nothing left to read. - Guido Brunetti
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Donna Leon |
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04c4935
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Patta's expression seemed cordial enough, though from past experience Brunetti knew this was meaningless: vipers liked to bask on rocks in the sunshine, did they not?
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Donna Leon |
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2a07951
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We work in a profession that has consequences for the heart,
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Donna Leon |
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e07e19c
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Lampedusa had it right--things had to seem to change so that things could remain the same.
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Donna Leon |
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26b6ffe
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Pucetti's was the generation that was all in favour of sentiment, sharing other people's pain, voicing compassion for the downtrodden, yet Brunetti often found in them traces of a ruthlessness that chilled his spirit and made him fearful for the future. He wondered if the cheap sentimentality of television and film had sent them into some sort of emotional insulin shock and suffocated their ability to feel empathy with the unappealing victi..
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Donna Leon |
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329ed9d
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We are a nation of egoists. It is our glory, but it will be our destruction, for none of us can be made to concern ourselves about something as abstract as "the common good". The best of us can rise to feeling concern for our families, but as a nation we are incapable of more."
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Donna Leon |
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1100631
|
Fragolino,
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Donna Leon |
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429f338
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he involved in the bankruptcy of that plastics factory? Ten years ago? Fifteen?' Of course, that was where Brunetti had read the name: the factory up near
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Donna Leon |
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002a347
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He smiled at the brilliance of his perception, and Brunetti, too, smiled, delighted to hear it.
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Donna Leon |
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659a5e4
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To serious readers like him and Paola, reading was an activity, not a pastime, and so the presence of another person added nothing to it.
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Donna Leon |
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ab69243
|
I've been thinking that of late - she said. - Thinking what? - That the world of Henry James is becoming very small for me.
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Donna Leon |
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cb1ed04
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Brunetti asked, surprised how painful he still found the thought of his mother. He had tried for the last year, with singular lack of success, to tell himself that his mother, that bright-spirited woman who had raised them and loved them with unqualified devotion, had moved off to some other place, where she waited, still quickwitted and eager to smile, for that befuddled shell that was her body to come and join her so that they could drift..
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Donna Leon |