Quotes from John Hooper

Italian has fewer words in common with Sardinian than it does with French. And the two languages look very different when written down. For example, the Italian proverb Il sangue non è acqua (the equivalent of "Blood is thicker than water") in Sardu becomes Su sambene no est abba. The overwhelming majority of Sardinians—about a million people—speak Sardu, which has three dialects of its own.

Just as Don Quixote, whose preposterous idealism and touchy pride immediately struck a chord with the Spanish, so Pinocchio speaks to Italians in a very special way as a caricature of many of their national virtues and vices.

Ideological ambiguity has been a hallmark of Italian politics since the foundation of the republic in 1946.

Imprecision is, on the whole, highly prized. Definition and categorization are, by contrast, suspect. For

things to remain flexible, they need to be complicated or vague, and preferably both.

The essence of dietrologia is that it dismisses the notion that anyone could act purely for reasons of moral conviction.

The use of symbols and metaphors, the endless interplay between illusion and reality, the difficulty of getting at a commonly accepted truth: these are all things that make Italy both frustrating and endlessly intriguing—not least because they raise the tantalizing question of why a people who spend so much of their time peering behind masks and facades should nevertheless be so concerned with appearances, with what they see on the surface.

one reason Italians place such emphasis on what is visible is because they assume it is a representation of something that is not.

Catholicism makes greater allowance than Protestantism for human frailty, and it has doubtless contributed toward much that is commendable in Italy: compassion, a reluctance to judge and a readiness to forgive—all themes that will recur in later chapters of this book.

It is often said that the Germans have never recovered from the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century, that the brutality of that momentous clash between Protestant and Catholic armies hard-wired into their national character a sense of insecurity that they have never been able to shake off.

the notion of objective truth is something that in Italy often causes unease.

Skepticism about ever being able to reach firm conclusions is both reflected in, and encouraged by, the Italian language.

Suddenly, Pinocchio's identity as a puppet takes on the power of metaphor. Until now, it has been possible to think of him more or less as a naughty little boy. But now his being a marionette becomes central to the story - and to the message, of the importance of education, that Collodi is using the story to convey. If you don't study and make a contribution to society, you will forever remain a puppet. You will never grow. And, as the story goes on to relate, your life will be blighted.

teetotaler.

Campania is Italy's poorest region and in many respects its saddest.

I don't know about you, but the reason I left my parents was because I wanted the freedom to sleep with girls. My sons have that – and they still have their mother to wash their clothes and cook their meals. No wonder they don't want to go!

But physical aggression is often replaced by verbal abuse, and verbal insults seldom lead to physical aggression.