{"quotes":[{"text":"Erhaps it was the difference in age between the countries—America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires.","author":"Jess Walter","tags":["america","cowboys","empires","italy"],"id":262,"author_id":"Jess+Walter"},{"text":"At Bramasole, the first secret spot that draws me outside is a stump and board bench on a high terrace overlooking the lake and valley. Before I sit down, I must bang the board against a tree to knock off all the ants. Then I'm happy. With a stunted oak tree for shelter and a never-ending view, I am hidden. No one knows where I am. The nine-year-old's thrill of the hideout under the hydrangea comes back: My mother is calling me and I am not answering.","author":"Frances Mayes","tags":["garden","home","italy","sense-of-place"],"id":3001,"author_id":"Frances+Mayes"},{"text":"The first move was to turn to the one great, perfectly visible and certified revolution in the recent history of the human race [the Google search-engine].","author":"Nicola Lagioia","tags":["google","internet","italy"],"id":3144,"author_id":"Nicola+Lagioia"},{"text":"Rome and New York were impressive, but they knew they were. They had the beauty of a vain woman who had squeezed herself into her favourite dress after hours of careful self worship. There was a raw, feral beauty about this landscape that was totally unselfconscious but no less real...There was no pomp or vainty here; this was an innocent, natural beauty, the best kind, like a woman first thing in the morning, lit up by the sun streaming through a window, who doesn't quite believe it when you tell her how beautiful she is.","author":"Leonardo Donofrio","tags":["beautiful","beautiful-writing","beauty","buildings","italian","italy","new-york","new-york-city","personification","rome","tuscany","woman"],"id":3674,"author_id":"Leonardo+Donofrio"},{"text":"Men speak of God’s love for man… but if providence does not come in this hour, where is He then? My conclusion is simple. The Semitic texts from Bronze Age Palestine of which Christianity is comprised still fit uncomfortably well with contemporary life. The Old Testament depicts a God capricious and cruel; blood sacrifice, vengeance, genocide; death and destruction et al. Would He not approve of Herr Hitler and the brutal, tribalistic crusade against Hebrews and non-Christian ‘untermensch?’One thing is inarguable. His church on Earth has produced some of the most vigorous and violent contribution to the European fascist cause.It is synergy. Man Created God, even if God Created Man; it all exists in the hubris and apotheosis of the narcissistic soul, and alas, all too many of the human herd are willing to follow the beastly trait of leadership. The idea of self-emancipation and advancement, with Europe under the jackboot of fascism, would be Quixotic to the point of mirthless lunacy.","author":"Daniel S. Fletcher","tags":["apotheosis","bonhoeffer","bronze-age-palestine","catholic-church","catholic-church-nazi-germany","catholic-fascism","christianity","church-hitler","church-right-wing","crusades","emancipation","extreme-right","fascism","fascism-and-the-church","franco","god","god-vengeance","hitler","italy","jackboot","jackboot-britain","mussolini","nazis-and-the-church","nietzsche","old-testament","old-testament-god","religion","religious","right-wing","spanish-civil-war","the-crusades","tribalistic","vatican","vatican-city","vengeance","vengeful","zealotry","zealots"],"id":4201,"author_id":"Daniel+S.+Fletcher"},{"text":"I will say that the food in both Japan and Italy was immaculate. I don't remember having bad food in either country.","author":"Daniel Gillies","tags":["remember","country","italy "],"id":9695,"author_id":"Daniel+Gillies"},{"text":"That's what lay behind the feud under way in the Republic: a battle between different noble family factions in a fight for power. Serving this side or the other was of no interest to Mathias. But the consequences of a Venice under the Pope's direct control weren't at all to his liking. His beloved books would be burned by ignorant, avid priests. Men like Malachia would win.It was the same old struggle. The same fight Gheorg had chosen, the same fight that might take him to Wittenberg. But he wouldn't clear the way for Alexander VI. With what little strength he possessed, even though he was nothing more than a pawn of a chessboard, that extended farther then he could see, Mathias would help those in power smash what had all the makings of a major plot, one designed to overturn the government in power in La Serenissima. And these thoughts allowed the monk to find the first answer to the many question with which he still felt burdened.He and the Borgias did NOT share the same Church.","author":"Riccardo Bruni","tags":["battle","battles-within","books","borgias","church","italy","monk","pawn","pawn-or-player","venice"],"id":10630,"author_id":"Riccardo+Bruni"},{"text":"Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it  'Italy.'.","author":"Elizabeth Barrett Browning","tags":["italy"],"id":12033,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Barrett+Browning"},{"text":"Mr Benz, the parapet of an Italian bridge doesn’t look like the proper place for you,” said Chase.","author":"Stefania Mattana","tags":["british-detectives","cozy-mystery","crime","italy","mystery","short-stories"],"id":16925,"author_id":"Stefania+Mattana"},{"text":"Here we are at last. The Italian proverb says “See Naples and die” but I say, see Naples and live; for there seems a great deal worth living for.","author":"Arthur John Strutt","tags":["italy","naples","travel"],"id":20450,"author_id":"Arthur+John+Strutt"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":119,"pages":12,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}