Marina Fiorato > Quotes

“Love is when you like someone so much you have to call it something else.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“A world of words where the black characters printed on the parchment he held meant more to this monk than the people or places around him.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“His life was cheap to him. Perhaps that's why he rode faster than any other, perhaps that was why he had walked into the house of Aquila without the quickening of a heartbeat: because at the heart of his courage was the fact that he really did not care if he died. Such courage is not true courage. True courage is when a man quakes with fear in the face of death, yet still risks his life for something he cares about. Ricardo Bruni did not know this yet, but he was to learn it soon.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Daughter of Siena

“- Jesmo li uludo protratili zadnje dvije godine? Zar nismo već tada mogli ukrstiti naše puteve?
- Ne mislim da smo ih protratili. Naši su se putevi ukrstili onoga dana kad smo se sreli. Samo smo još neko vrijeme morali putovati sami. Tada te nisam mogla prihvatiti. Previše se toga moralo učiniti - za previše toga iskupiti.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Madonna of the Almonds

“With a paring knife she hacked off her waist-length hair just below the chin. Kit felt a shiver of misgiving. How would she net a talking fish now, or tether a dragon? How would she escape from her tower?”
― Marina Fiorato, Kit

“It took Feyra some time to realise that she was not delirious: the citizens were wearing painted masks.From childhood she had heard the legend that the Venetians were half human, half beast.She knew that this could not be true, but in the swirling fog of this hellish city she almost believed it. The creatures seemed to stare at her down their warped noses from their blank and hollow eyes. And overlord of all was the winged lion - he was everywhere, watching from every plaque or pennant, ubiquitous and threatening.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Venetian Contract

“she hauled herself up from the streets, for she was once no more than a courtesan. She is reputed to rule her husband; they say that beneath her fine gowns hangs a prick and her balls clang together like a ring o' bells for the doge has none.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“Ma vie piu lieta, piu ridente a belle/ ardisce aprire il seno al sol la rosa.... which express that the rose is more daring then the humble violet!”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“Amore è quando qualcuno ti piace talmente tanto che devi dargli un altro nome.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“Man kan lettere forsnakke seg enn fortie seg.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Glassblower of Murano

“Florence looks like gold and smells like sulphur.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret

“Iskazali ste mi veliku čast. Jer kad zatvorimo oči dok ljubimo, bilo glavu djeteta, bilo noge sveca, bilo usne voljene osobe, taj poljubac znači više nego išta drugo. Tek tada iskusimo što znači osjećati.”
― Marina Fiorato

“In the Ottoman Empire,’ she began, ‘the camel traders have stopping places along their trade routes called caravanserai. Sometimes they are hundreds of miles apart, over desert or mountain range, but they travel safe in the knowledge that there will be a place where they can shelter and find succour at the end of their journey. Even if they have never been that way before, they are sure that there will be such a place; that sooner or later, they will find a caravanserai.’ Annibale sat forward, interested. ‘ How do they know?’ ‘They do not know. They have faith. ’He sat back again. ‘I think Annibale did too. That is why my mother named me so.’ She could see that it cost him to talk of her. ‘She liked the story. She said no one could know what lay beyond today, but you had to hope, and be brave, and trust that all would be well.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Venetian Contract

“I had always been clever, I had always been outspoken. I had always been well read; I just had to be that. My plan was simple. My notion was that no man wanted a wife who was cleverer than him, and spoke boldly enough to show the world that was.”
― Marina Fiorato, Beatrice and Benedick

“There’s a Florentine saying that if you don’t find the Mercata Nuova interesting, then you are dead.”
― Marina Fiorato, The Botticelli Secret