Quotes from Ugo Betti

Is not man himself the most unsettled of all the creatures of the earth? What is this trembling sensation that is intensified with each ascending step in the natural order?

'Mad' is a term we use to describe a man who is obsessed with one idea and nothing else.

Nature is honest, we aren't; we embalm our dead.

We cannot bear to regard ourselves simply as playthings of blind chance, we cannot admit to feeling ourselves abandoned.

Everyone has, inside himself ... what shall I call it? A piece of good news! Everyone is ... a very great, very important character.

I think the family is the place where the most ridiculous and least respectable things in the world go on.

If we have anything kind to say, any tender sentiment to express, we feel a sense of shame.

When you put a man and a woman together, there are some things they simply have to do. They embrace, they warm each other. All the rest is dead and empty.

We play make believe, pretend to take ourselves and each other seriously--to love each other, hate each other--but then--it isn't true. It isn't true, we don't care at all!

Sisterly love is, of all sentiments, the most abstract. Nature does not grant it any functions.

It so difficult to know what the people we love really need.

The first temptation, upon meeting an old friend after many years, is always to - look the other way.

All of us are mad. If it weren't for the fact every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn't be any point in giving each person a separate name.

A vague uneasiness; the police. It's like when you suddenly understand you have to undress in front of the doctor.

Killing time is the chief end of our society.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely. The condemned man has that joy.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.

This free-will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It's almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it.

A long association-prolonged human contact, when a man and woman live together-this ends up producing a sort of rot, a poison.

Murderers, in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one idea and nothing else.

Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid.

Sisterly love is, of all sentiments, the most abstract. Nature does not grant it any functions.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.

We cannot bear to regard ourselves simply as playthings of blind chance; we cannot admit to feeling ourselves abandoned.