"It's important to interrogate history, it's important to document history, because as a society we need constant reminders of the things that we've done in the past in the hope we can stop repeating these horrible lessons."

“To write more from memory and to be more creative - I think - because I am still writing about Los Angeles but I can't walk out my door and immediately drive to places I am writing about. So I think it has been a very good change for me after 11 books to start writing this way.”

“After I set out to refute Christianity intellectually and couldn't, I came to the conclusion the Bible was true and Jesus Christ was God's Son.”

“Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the pause of happiness”

“Extreme justice is extreme injustice.”

“Moreover, nature's blocks had to be eternal-because nothing can come from nothing.”

“Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.”

“most crimes are connected to hunger. One hunger or another.”

Source : Marlena de Blasi (2008). “That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story”, p.66, Ballantine Books

“When speaking of love, and suffering a broken heart, the student said, 'You can't drown if you vow to never swim again.' To which the master replied, 'You will also never choke if you don't eat.'”