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The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2) QUOTES

The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2) QUOTES

1 " The memory of the aged becomes clearer and clearer with time. It has no pity. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

2 " Unwell? I was fine, as good as one might feel in such circumstances. No, my friend, I merely pretended to faint. I'm a good actress. Actually, a thought had come into my mind: if a terrorist, I said to myself, were to blow up this church with all of us inside, at least one-tenth of all the hypocrisy in the world would disappear with us. So I had myself escorted out. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

3 " Le affinità elettive erano un gioco rozzo a paro degli insondabili giri del sangue, capace di dare peso, corpo, respiro alla memoria. Taliò il ralogio e sobbalzò. L'ora era ampiamente passata. Trasì nella càmmara di letto. Il vecchio si stava godendo un sonno sereno, il respiro lèggio, l'ariata distesa, calma. Viaggiava nel paese del sonno senza più ingombro di bagaglio. Poteva dormire a lungo, tanto sul comodino c'erano il portafoglio coi soldi e un bicchiere d'acqua. Si ricordò del cane di peluche che aveva comprato a Livia a Pantelleria. Lo trovò sopra il comò, nascosto dietro una scatola. Lo pigliò, lo mise a terra, ai piedi del letto. Poi chiuse adascio adascio la porta alle sue spalle. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

4 " And in our dark days, with so many threatening clouds on the horizon, he concluded, we puff up a story like this to drug people, to distract their
attention from the serious problems and
divert them with a Romeo-and-Juliet
story, one scripted, however, by a soap opera writer. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

5 " To judge from the entrance the dawn was making, it promised to be a very iffy day -- that is, blasts of angry sunlight one minute, fits of freezing rain the next, all of it seasoned with sudden gusts of wind -- one of those days when someone who is sensitive to abrupt shifts in weather and suffers them in his blood and brain is likely to change opinion and direction continuously, like those sheets of tin, cut in the shape of banners and roosters, that spin every which way on rooftops with each new puff of wind. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

6 " You’re eating without conviction, Inspector.’ ‘It’s true. The fact is, I’ve got something on my mind.’ ‘The mind should be forgotten when the Lord in His grace puts such perches in front of you, "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

7 " Giulio was against our meeting. He didn't want me getting mixed up in things that, in his opinion, were no concern of mine. For decades the respectable people here did nothing but repeat that the Mafia was no concern of theirs but only involved the people involved in it. But I used to teach my pupils that the see-nothing, know-nothing attitude is the most mortal of sins. So now that its my turn to tell what I saw, I'm supposed to take a step back? "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

8 " Aride colline, quasi tumoli giganteschi, coperte solo di stoppie gialle d’erba secca, abbandonate dalla mano dell’uomo per sopravvenute sconfitte dovute alla siccità, all’arsura o più semplicemente alla stanchezza di un combattimento perso in partenza, di tanto in tanto interrotte dal grigio di rocce a pinnacolo, assurdamente nate dal nulla o forse piovute dall’alto, stalattiti o stalagmiti di quella fonda grotta a cielo aperto ch’era la Sicilia. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

9 " guessing, "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

10 " Sex standing up and walking on sand will bring any man to a bad end. He "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)

11 " Leggera, la cena, ma tutto cucinato con quel tocco che il Signore rarissimamente concede agli Eletti. Montalbano non ringraziò la moglie del questore, si limitò a taliarla con gli occhi di un cane randagio al quale viene fatta una carezza. "

― Andrea Camilleri , The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)