Laura Morelli > Quotes

“In Venice, things not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers, and quaysides of my native city. I row into the neck of the Grand Canal, and, one by one, the reflection of each colorful façade appears, only to dissipate into wavering, shimmering shards under my oar.”
― Laura Morelli, The Gondola Maker

“Do the Elgin marbles or the Rosetta stone 'belong to Britain? These treasures have come to us at the Louvre through various circumstances; they have passed through many places and hands. They are not ours. We are only custodians. Our job is to protect and save them from damage and destruction. But they belong to all of us, all of civilization. They belong to the future.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Perhaps it's when we might lose it all that we finally gain an appreciation for things we once took for granted.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“I am a man of peace, but my father loves to argue, to blame to accuse.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“The 2015 documentary What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy included interviews with Niklas Frank, the”
― Laura Morelli, The Night Portrait

“Bellina at least was valued. It was enough. There was no need to chase mysteries and politics. Betrayals were not nearly so romantic and exciting as she had once thought.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Edith’s heart surged whenever a spark of clarity flickered in the fog, when her real father came back to her, if only for a fleeting moment.”
― Laura Morelli, The Night Portrait

“The oar makes swirling patterns in the water, stirring shards of colored Carnival confetti. The multicolored scraps of paper are the detritus of parties that people insist on hosting even though the authorities of Our Most Serene Republic have warned us that congregating in large groups might spread contagion. I watch the shards of paper float and spin on the surface of the dark canal waters until their colors begin to blur through stifled tears.”
― Laura Morelli, The Painter's Apprentice

“I have come to accept that war is inevitable. Beauty is fleeting. Only love and art endure.”
― Laura Morelli, The Night Portrait

“Here in this, windswept, shadowed world, all of that seems so far away, a place God surely intended to be His own masterpiece. The steep slopes, snow-caked crags, rugged angles and curves; it is the most magnificent sculpture that could ever exist. No rowdy upstart sculptor could ever attempt such a creation.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Instead, that centuries-old Florentine lady had made Anne think about something more. Something bigger than herself. Of things that gave life mystery and meaning. A glimpse of the vast ocean of history and a world beyond her small one.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa

“We have to stop them from taking what is rightfully ours---what rightly belongs to the cultural patrimony of all humanity.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Who would want to destroy something that celebrated the best of human creativity and achievement?”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“Imagine a world without art, without music, dancing, without the things we do not really need. It would not be a world worth living in.”
― Laura Morelli, The Night Portrait

“Books have the power to transport us, to allow us to escape to another time and place, just by reading some words on a page or screen. That's the closest thing to magic I know. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that art matters. In times of strife, we turn to stories---books, movies, dance, the visual arts. Stories and creativity help make meaning out chaos and fear. They make us human.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“To make a big change, something must push and something else pull.”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady

“The Jews have been driven out of our city several times over the course of my own lifetime, not counting the many times before that. They were sent away from Florence along with their greatest supporters, the Medici, but our republican leaders soon realized how indispensable they were to commerce in our city and brought them back. Now, our wool guild hardly operates without them, but when they were recalled, only a few came straggling back. You could hardly blame those who stayed away, I think. Without the protection of our more powerful families, why would they return to Florence?”
― Laura Morelli, The Giant: A Novel of Michelangelo's David

“Did the girls know, the guide asked, that the Mona Lisa was a real woman, one who had lived and breathed and smiled at Leonardo da Vinci himself? That Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, would become an icon, an embodiment of ideal beauty, a symbol of the Italian Renaissance itself? That the man who painted her would become one of the most famous names in history? That the painter captured not just a woman sitting, hands quietly folded, but an entire era in one portrait?”
― Laura Morelli, The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa

“That I've perhaps taken a step longer, than my leg. Pride is a mortal sin, of course...”
― Laura Morelli, THE STOLEN LADY: A Novel of WWII & the Mona Lisa