Donna Leon > Quotes

“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.”
― Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country

“He hesitated then, anticipating the panic that came when there was nothing left to read”
― Donna Leon, Earthly Remains

“Though he did not believe, he was not untouched by the magic of belief ...”
― Donna Leon, Death and Judgment

“Oh, so seldom does fate cast our enemy into our hands, to do with as we will”
― Donna Leon, Acqua Alta

“His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.”
― Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

“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.”
― Donna Leon, Quietly in Their Sleep

“Why are other people's prejudices so strange, while our own are so thought-out and reasonable?”
― Donna Leon, The Waters of Eternal Youth

“How beautiful, the grace of women; how soft their charity.”
― Donna Leon, Dressed for Death

“And will knowing what she reads make you know who she is?”
“Can you think of a better way to tell?”
― Donna Leon, Quietly in Their Sleep

“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?”
― Donna Leon, Suffer the Little Children

“She believed that books served as a mirror of the person who accumulated them.”
― Donna Leon, Through a Glass, Darkly

“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 can rise to feeling concern for our families, but as a nation we are incapable of more.’

‘I refuse to believe that.’ Brunetti said.

‘Your refusal to believe it,’ the Count said with a smile that was almost tender, ‘makes it no less true, Guido.”
― Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country

“Why was it that, when children loved you, you knew everything, and when they were angry with you, you knew nothing?

Commissario Guido Brunetti”
― Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

“She was not beautiful, but she had a pleasant face, the sort that would wear well through life, becoming more attractive as she grew older.”
― Donna Leon, Suffer the Little Children

“They hadn't lived long enough to understand what grace it was to die in an instant and not to linger.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“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 had come close to suggesting that her approach was wrong.”
― Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

“South.
`But no name?,
'No, Guido. But I'll keep”
― Donna Leon, Acqua Alta

“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.”
― Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice

“He looked at his wedding ring, twirled it around once or twice with his thumb. What pleasure it gave him to touch it, as though it were some sort of cult object, invested with magic powers, always near at hand, like a friendly spirit.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“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. ”
― Donna Leon, Death and Judgment

“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.”
― Donna Leon, Falling in Love

“La nube del no saber —respondió el conte, e hizo una pausa—. Siempre me ha parecido un título maravilloso para una autobiografía.”
― Donna Leon, En el nombre del hijo

“he could just tabulate all the hours he’d spent talking about politics and politicians during his life and could pack them together like a snowball and somehow add them to his life, how much longer would he live? Even more interesting, how else might he have used that time? He could have learned another language; to knit and have made sweaters or long, uneven scarves for everyone. What colour Judo belt would he be entitled to wear by now?”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires

“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.”
― Donna Leon, A Sea of Troubles

“Over the years, he had come to believe that he could have only a second-class opinion about abortion and that his gender deprived him of a vote on the subject. This in no way affected his thoughts or his visceral feelings, but the right to a decision belonged to women on this one.”
― Donna Leon, Suffer the Little Children

“...when scores of indicted criminals sit in parliament who could believe in the rule of law...”
― Donna Leon, A Question of Belief

“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.”
― Donna Leon, A Noble Radiance

“Lampedusa had it right—things had to seem to change so that things could remain the same.”
― Donna Leon, A Venetian Reckoning

“What fools men are to raze a city, destroying tombs, and temples, and sacred places, when they are so soon to die themselves.”
― Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son Is Given

“I give only one example of the falsity of gossip and hearsay, and I urge my readers to beware of incredible tales, however widely they might be believed and instead to believe the unvarnished truth.”
― Donna Leon, Transient Desires