Sicily Quotes

“Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra."

("We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.")”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own.

This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“sticks and stones might break your bones, but cement pays homage to tradition.”
― Estelle Getty

“I hate and detest Sicily in so far as I love it, and in so far as it does not respond to the kind of love I would like to have for it.”
― Leonardo Sciascia

“Maybe the whole of italy is becoming a sort of Sicily.”
― Leonardo Sciascia, The Day of the Owl

“Cooking is about surrender.”
― Tembi Locke, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home

“Scientists say that the palm tree line, that is the climate suitable to growth of the palm, is moving north, five hundred metres, I think it was, every year...The palm tree line...I call it the coffee line, the strong black coffee line...It's rising like mercury in a thermometer, this palm tree line, this strong coffee line, this scandal line, rising up throughout Italy and already passed Rome...”
― Leonardo Sciascia, The Day of the Owl

“The Negro is not the man farthest down. The condition of the coloured farmer in the most backward parts of the Southern States of America, even where he has the least education and the least encouragement, is incomparably better than the condition and opportunities of the agricultural population in Sicily.”
― Booker T. Washington, The Man Farthest Down: A Record Of Observation And Study In Europe

“There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer.”
― Leonardo Sciascia, To Each His Own

“He swirled his drink and stared off into the crowd, terribly satisfied. “Have you ever seen a face so weirdly symmetrical? Put our man Luca Catenacci on a poster for…Sicilian cologne. Those genes? With the whole Vitelli-Marzano thing you’ve got going?” He issued a low whistle. “Unstoppable.”
― Abigail C. Edwards, And We All Bled Oil

“Amuri è cuntintizza.”
― Simonetta Agnello Hornby

“Among the papers and refuse swirled about by the wind were a few verses of La Bella Gigugin transformed into a kind a f Arab wail, a fare to which any gay tune sung in Sicily is bound to succumb.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“Gli liscia le ciocche color corteccia come se fossero frutto del suo sudato e doloroso lavoro. E io che sono suo davvero, per sudore, dolore e tempo, mi guadagno il suo sguardo annoiato.”
― Nora Cenere, La costellazione del cane

“In fondo al dramma del Sud c'è questa nostra solitudine umana: ognuno di noi è debole poiché è solo; ed è solo poiché rifiuta di avere fiducia o speranza negli altri, poiché è orgogliosamente convinto di poterne fare a meno.”
― Giuseppe Fava, Processo alla Sicilia

“Non c'è in tutta l'Europa un popolo così orgoglioso e infelice come quello siciliano, che faccia tanto male a se stesso, ma non c'è nemmeno un popolo che abbia tanta devozione alla sua terra, e che abbia altrettanto coraggio di lottare per l'esistenza, e tanta violenza, tanto amore per la vita.”
― Giuseppe Fava, Processo alla Sicilia

“Al sorgere del sole le ombre umide della notte si ritiravano dal le falde deserte, lasciandovi pennellate azzurre; le messi ristorate frusciavano e gli uccelli vi svolazzavano in cerca di cibo. Il cielo acquisiva profondità e diventava blu intenso. Poi sbiancava, incandescente. Il sole a picco dominava e folgorava ogni cosa, inesorabile. Gli uccelli, stanchi e accecati dalla luce sfavillante, si rifugiavano dietro le pietre; erbe e piante ai bordi dei sentieri tratteneva no i profumi e abbassavano le foglie arse. Le ombre assetate della sera - lunghe, nette, rosse - risvegliavano insetti, uccelli e odori campestri. Il sole tramontava dietro le colline in una fantasmagorìa di rosso, giallo, amaranto, violetto. Poi la calma.”
― Simonetta Agnello Hornby, La zia marchesa

“Costanza non capiva sino in fondo, ma non poneva domande, tanto le piacevano quelle passeggiate in carrozza, seduta orgogliosa accanto al fratello maggiore, su e giù per il lungomare. Da un lato c'erano i grandi palazzi nobiliari con le loro terrazze lussureggianti. Sul marciapiede gremito di gente benvestita per la passeggiata si aprivano i caffè della Marina, davanti ai quali si fermavano le carrozze per il gelato. La strada costeggiava il mare limpido, tranquillo, su cui si rifletteva a occidente, magnifico, il lare protettore: Monte Pellegrino. I camerieri li servivano in carrozza. Si facevano strada in mezzo ai clienti seduti ai tavolini e alla gente che passeggiava davanti a loro tenendo in bilico sul braccio teso in alto, sulle teste dei passanti, grandi vassoi rotondi con sopra bicchieri d'acqua e coppette di metallo argentato piene di gelato rasato al bordo. Su ognuna era infilzato un biscotto tubolare, croccante. Costanza era golosa: assaporava con voluttà persino l'acqua dolce e rinfrescante, che sorbiva a piccoli sorsi dopo il gelato.”
― Simonetta Agnello Hornby, La zia marchesa

“Il tempo stava cambiando. Nuvoloni grigi spuntavano minacciosi dietro la cerchia dei monti alle spalle della città; lì il cielo era livido. Una grossa nuvola coprì il sole e la terrazza si oscurò all'improvviso. Il barone sollevò gli occhi malati e li puntò su Monte Pellegrino. Lo vedeva sfocato in lontananza, stagliato contro il cielo: ma il monte aveva già cambiato colore. Nuove sfumature - blu, viola - lo rendevano austero e minaccioso. Quella montagna dalle proporzioni perfette e dalla solida bellezza era il guardiano del golfo: una mitica fiera accovacciata e immersa a metà nel mare - groppa e gambe emergevano nelle loro forme angolose -, ma pronta a trarsi dal sonno e a drizzarsi contro chi osasse avvicinarsi alla città. Domenico Safamita amava Palermo d'una passione quasi fisica. "Si distruggono monasteri, palazzi, si sventrano quartieri. Non importa che manchi l'acqua, che le fognature siano rudimentali o inesistenti, che il popolino viva in tuguri e muoia di fame e malattie: i palermitani vogliono un nuovo grandioso teatro lirico. Sempre più bella e più abietta, mai come ora Palermo si rivela magnifica e compiaciuta di aver mantenuto la sua identità di città superlativamente cortigiana. A Palermo anche le pietre sudano sensualità." Sulla sinistra la nuova strada, larghissima, finiva a mare.
Lì sembrava essere calata la notte e l'acqua era cosparsa di puntini luccicanti: le prime lampare dei pescatori. La nuvola scivolò dal sole e tutto ritornò come prima: il mare era una macchia scura senza bagliori, Monte Pellegrino, appena rosato, si stagliava netto e benigno.”
― Simonetta Agnello Hornby, La zia marchesa

“Ma gli altri, tutti quegli altri ragazzi a cui il «miracolo» di Anastasi ha dato un simbolo, un barlume di speranza, un anelito nuovo? Potranno almeno sperare di tenergli dietro e di vincere la vita, non sulle sole vie dello sport? Saremo un giorno anche noi come gli altri, in una società più civile, più larga di stimoli e di possibilità? Se un giorno lo saremo, se ogni piccolo siciliano potrà partire sulla stessa linea del suo fratello di Milano o di Verona, e non sembrerà più un miracolo che riesca, vorrà dire che avremo inteso sino in fondo che cosa vale e che cosa significa la favola dolce-amara del ragazzo che se ne andò dalla sua modesta casetta e fece tremare l'Olimpico.
– dalla prefazione di Luigi Prestinenza, "Brividi all'Olimpico”
― Mario Continella, Anastasi. Favola e realtà

“La Sicilia è un mondo a sé che nessuno pensa di dover scoprire perché tutti credono di avere già scoperto.”
― Massimo Simili, Il capitano catanese

“she believed in the healthy influence of natural surroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different.”
― Saki, Reginald

“No hay ninguna mujer siciliana de cualquier clase social, aristócrata o plebeya, que, cumplidos los cincuenta, no se espere siempre lo peor. ¿Qué tipo de peor? Cualquiera, pero siempre lo peor.”
― Andrea Camilleri

“The island of Sicily is the largest in the Mediterranean. It has also
proved, over the centuries, to be the most unhappy. The stepping-stone
between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, the
link between the Latin world and the Greek, at once a stronghold,
observation-point and clearing-house, it has been fought over and occupied
in turn by all the great powers that have at various times striven to extend
their dominion across the Middle Sea. It has belonged to them all—and yet
has properly been part of none; for the number and variety of its
conquerors, while preventing the development of any strong national
individuality of its own, have endowed it with a kaleidoscopic heritage of
experience which can never allow it to become completely assimilated.
Even today, despite the beauty of its landscape, the fertility of its fields and
the perpetual benediction of its climate, there lingers everywhere some
dark, brooding quality—some underlying sorrow of which poverty, Church
influence, the Mafia and all the other popular modern scapegoats may be
the manifestations but are certainly not the cause. It is the sorrow of long,
unhappy experience, of opportunity lost and promise unfulfilled; the
sorrow, perhaps, of a beautiful woman who has been raped too often and
betrayed too often and is no longer fit for love or marriage. Phoenicians,
Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans,
Germans, Spaniards, French—all have left their mark. Today, a century
after being received into her Italian home, Sicily is probably less unhappy
than she has been for many centuries; but though no longer lost she still
seems lonely, seeking always an identity which she can never entirely find.”
― john julius norwich, The Normans in Sicily: The Normans in the South 1016-1130 and the Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194

“Nowhere has truth so short a life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, annihilated by imagination and self-interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity, all the passions, good as well as evil, fling themselves on the fact and tear it to pieces; very soon it has vanished altogether.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“Although Sicily in July can be a furnace, there can be cool nights by the sea, and up in the hills of Mount Etna. I allow myself to feel a tantalizing hope we might head up there. There is something thrilling about the pull of the volcano towering over the Sicilian coastline, constantly puffing steam and fiery red ash like a sleeping dragon, while farmers and villagers quietly live and work, aware that she can wake at any moment.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Our holidays began here in Catania, this loud, bustling city pulsing with memories. I know these scenes, like a movie once adored and now almost forgotten. I know the large square lava-stone pavers that line the footpaths. I can smell salty, fishy air coming from the fish market I think is just down the far end of the square. I remember this intense heat, the sea breeze flowing like water between the buildings, down the alleyways, never quite cooling enough.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Taormina sits on a natural platform above the coast, its small streets and tiny staircases climbing to the summit of Mount Tauro, where an ancient Greek theater looks out across the sea. Stunning views aside, its coral-colored stone houses with wrought-iron balconies climb above elegant piazzas lined with cafés and filled with people. Deep green bushes with their bright pink flowers seem to grow everywhere, straight from the baking-hot stone. The town is beautiful, the pearl of the Ionian Sea, recently made famous by the show The White Lotus.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“My first encounter with the bittersweet taste of the Moro, a Sicilian blood orange, was sitting outside under a gnarled olive tree, during the height of a June heat wave. Small puffs of cloud the only blemish in the otherwise perfect blue sky, the bloodred flesh yielding a juice so refreshing it felt as close to perfect as I've ever come. The second encounter came at a fish market in Catania, where a group of men in flat caps spooned red-orange mounds of Moro granita into their mouths between games of cards. I was back in my dad's world, and the memories of oranges were everywhere.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina.

I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me.

Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella.

And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself.

Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion.

Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option!
Leo.
I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“You texted Garcia for help?" Jack gritted out. "Garcia? Not me?"
"He has a gun."
"So do I."
"He's steady and reliable," I said. "He doesn't disappear for eight months. He doesn't go on business trips that require burner phones and secret codes. He doesn't refuse to tell me what he does for a living. I texted HELP and I knew he'd come. I wasn't sure about you."
"You don't think I would have come if you'd texted me for help?" Indignation laced Jack's tone.
"For all I knew, you were being tossed out a window in Rio, tortured by the Italian Mafia in Tuscany, or you were in the North Sea trapped in a Russian submarine."
"The Italian Mafia are based in Sicily," he corrected me. "Tuscany doesn't have the port access they need for the drug trade."
I folded my arms and sighed. "You missed the point entirely.”
― Sara Desai, 'Til Heist Do Us Part