I came to Venice for the first time in 1968 and was lucky enough to make the acquaintanceship, and then the friendship, of two Venetians, Roberta and Franco, who remain my best friends here after almost 50 years. – Donna Leon
Italians know about human nature – they understand human nature perhaps better than anyone else does. They know that people are weak and greedy and lazy and dishonest and they just try to make the best of it to work around it. – Donna Leon
I do not take any pleasure whatsoever in being a famous person. – Donna Leon
And I dont want to live anywhere where I am famous. It makes me very, very uncomfortable, because it conveys an advantage over people, and I dont like that. – Donna Leon
Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadnt the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us. – Henry Miller