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
I never wanted to be rich or successful or famous. I just wanted to be happy and have fun. – Donna Leon
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
Those Romans who perpetrated the rape of the Sabines, for example, did not work themselves up for the deed by screening Debbie Does Dallas, and the monkish types who burned a million or so witches in the Middle Ages had almost certainly not come across Boobs and Buns or related periodicals. – Barbara Ehrenreich