Marlena de Blasi QUOTES

1 " We violate the innocence of things in the name of rationality so we can wander about, uninterrupted, in our search for passion and sentiment. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice

3 " They all know the truth, that there are only three subjects worth talking about. At least here in these parts," he says, "The weather, which, as they're farmers, affects everything else. Dying and birthing, of both people and animals. And what we eat - this last item comprising what we ate the day before and what we're planning to eat tomorrow. And all three of these major subjects encompass, in one way or another, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, the physical sciences, history, art, literature, and religion. We get around to sparring about all that counts in life but we usually do it while we're talking about food, it being a subject inseparable from every other subject. It's the table and the bed that count in life. And everything else we do, we do so we can get back to the table, back to the bed. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure

5 " Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether to dine out rather than in, or which one gets massaged that evening with oil of calendula; there are seasons in the life of a couple that function, I think, a little like a night watch. One stands guard, often for a long time, providing the serenity in which the other can work at something. Usually that something is sinewy and full of spines. One goes inside the dark place while the other one stays outside, holding up the moon. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice

7 " Maybe the only thing that matters is to make our lives last as long as we do. You know, to make a life last until it ends, to make all the parts come out even, like when you rub the last piece of bread in the last drop of oil on your plate and eat it with the last sip of wine in your glass. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure

9 " Some people are born empty. All manner of good deeds and patience and loving kindness can't even begin to fill them up. "

― Marlena de Blasi , That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story

11 " Rather than being love-blinded, it is in love that I can see, really see. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice

13 " I run down to meet Floriana who is breathless from her hike. She stops in the road, the last light at her back. Prickles of rain cling to her unkerchiefed, loosened hair, capturing in her the flickering russet frame of it. Topaz almonds are her eyes, lit tonight from some new, old place, from some exquisitely secret oubliette, which she must often forget she possesses. We talk for a minute and Barlozzo passes us by like a boy too shy to speak to two girls at once. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure

15 " Even in these first days together, it is very clear that this feeling of mine for the stranger has trumped all the other adventures in my life. It has shuffled everything and everyone else I thought I was moving toward or away from. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice

17 " Life is this conto, account,” said the banker in him. “It’s an unknown quantity of days from which one is permitted to withdraw only one precious one of them at a time. No deposits accepted. "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice