Mario Giordano > Quotes

“Sweet, salt, bitter, piquant - Sicilian cuisine is all-embracing and pleasurably involves all the senses in a single dish. A gelato must also be like this. Sweet as a whispered promise, the pistachio ice cream salty as sea air, the chocolate ice cream faintly bitter and a little tart like a lover's goodbye the next morning.”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

“October is one of the loveliest months in Sicily. It’s when summer opens its fist again, letting a little breeze into the house and allowing you to breathe again; when the light becomes as mellow as my Aunt Caterina’s limoncello and you take a sweater along in the evenings, just to be on the safe side;”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“Todo ser humano necesita un centro de interés en su vida, una fuente de verdad y de bondad, en la que poder saciarse ante las fatigas de la cotidianeidad, el latido de una presencia de confianza que solo se percibe con el sentimiento de la fe: la presencia de Jesucristo, el corazón del mundo.”
― Mario Giordano, Apocalipsis 1ª Entrega

“If Italian engineers have understood anything,” she told me once, “it’s the significance and construction of the horn. Because the horn is the voice and the heart and soul of any vehicle. The vehicle wants to cut a good figure, wants to sound good without being intrusive or making anyone look foolish. A German horn, by contrast, is always a declaration of war—it suggests that invading troops are already massing on the frontier, so to speak. An Italian horn sounds like a friendly clearing of the throat, a gentle ‘Permesso?’ or ‘Oh, signore, would you mind waiting? I’m afraid I have the right of way, grazie, molto gentile.’ With an Italian horn you can compliment a traffic cop on his beautiful eyes. You can even—don’t laugh!—make a proposal of marriage with an Italian horn. And the loveliest horn in the world is still the Vespa’s, which defies comparison.”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“Like so many things in Sicily, the story of winemaking there is one of superb resources, ignorance, greed, mediocrity, neglect, destruction, deliberation, a fresh start and triumph. No one knows that better than”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“The Mafia, Donna Poldina, is just an invention of the fascists in the north.”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

“It’s simply that Uncle knows one has to make regular sacrifices to the gods of happiness by wasting time”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“Lack of imagination is the little sister of timidity.”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“the blue trouser suit,”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

“Two slightly scratched and dented leftovers from the jumble sale of life”
― Mario Giordano, Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna