“But that day it was raining, and since they couldn't very well sit on the rooftop in the rain to watch the flotilla parade, they stayed in the little room that led to the roof. It had just one tiny...”

“Aboard the gondola, Giacomo Foscarini sat facing Mathias. They were crossing the Canal Grande, then they would navigate around San Marco and return. Foscarini loved to travel around Venice this way...”

“That's what lay behind the feud under way in the Republic: a battle between different noble family factions in a fight for power. Serving this side or the other was of no interest to Mathias. But t...”

“Will there ever come a day when you put yourself first?""No, that day will never come.""You're crazy, my old man.""It will never come because I've finally realized that I want you by my side, now a...”

“You live in a damnably twisted and convoluted world," replied Mathias. "And you are trampling accross it with all the delicacy of an elephant in a glass shop!" -Conversation between Mathias Munster...”

“Are you afraid a demon has escaped Hell in order to descend upon the Venetians?""I think there are a few who'd deserve it, but I'm also a man of science, and I believe that we all carry our own pri...”

“I send my friends e-mail messages about the progress of my garden, especially of my roses. It left them with the impression, I think, that I was concerned with nothing else. I felt no urgency in co...”

“A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another and building a successful family is like building a home. A successful family based on unity, forgiveness and love takes careful pla...”

“Each being is, exactly as you are, the sole centre of a Universe in no wise identical with, or even assimilable to, your own. The impersonal Universe of Nature is only an abstraction, approximately...”

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

“A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either.”

“[W]hen I see men callously and cheerfully denying women the full use of their bodies, while insisting with sobs and howls on the satisfaction of their own, I simply can't find it heroic, or kind, o...”