Andrea Camilleri

“He swam and he wept.”

— Andrea Camilleri

“Un cafè non s'arrefuta mai.”

— Andrea Camilleri

The memory of the aged becomes clearer and clearer with time. It has no pity.

— Andrea Camilleri

Wearing glasses for reading meant surrendering to old age without the least bit of a fight.

— Andrea Camilleri

“one cannot be held forever to a less-than-honorable act, after a life of great integrity, just because of one moment of weakness.”

— Andrea Camilleri

“They ate in religious silence, the corners of their mouths smeared with ricotta cream. Which, the rules say, must be removed with…

— Andrea Camilleri

“He was convinced he would keep his word. Not because he feared for his health, but because one cannot break a promise…

— Andrea Camilleri

“The inspector sat down on a stair, fired up a cigarette, and entered an immobility contest with a lizard.”

— Andrea Camilleri

“In moments of crisis, all you gotta do is review your multiplication tables, and it’ll all blow over!”

— Andrea Camilleri

“A positive vision is what keeps us going despite the misfortunes and setbacks that fill our lives. The sole disadvantage is that…

— Andrea Camilleri

“Getting seasick?" the inspector asked him at one point. "No. Just sick of myself." "Why?" "Because every now and then I realize…

— Andrea Camilleri

“And in our dark days, with so many threatening clouds on the horizon, he concluded, we puff up a story like this…

— Andrea Camilleri

Sicily has suffered 13 foreign dominations from which she has taken both the best and the worst. The sequence of different cultures…

— Andrea Camilleri

“Moltabano, for a moment, felt moved. That astonishing, wholly feminine capacity for deep understanding, for penetrating one's feelings, for being at once…

— Andrea Camilleri

“Montalbano recalled how in now distant times, when the sea withdrew, it would leave behind only sweet-smelling algae and beautiful shells that…

— Andrea Camilleri

What do two women friends usually do when they see each other? We talked, we watched television, we listened to music Sometimes…

— Andrea Camilleri

Montalbano and Valente seemed not to have heard him, looking as if their minds were elsewhere. But in fact they were paying…

— Andrea Camilleri

“In grammar school he’d had an old priest as his religion teacher. “Truth is light,” the priest had said one day. Montalbano,…

— Andrea Camilleri

“Unwell? I was fine, as good as one might feel in such circumstances. No, my friend, I merely pretended to faint. I'm…

— Andrea Camilleri

“rosticceria . . . cuddriruni . . . arancini supplì: A rosticceria is a take-out restaurant serving mostly roast meats; cuddriruni is a Sicilian sort of focaccia, served…

— Andrea Camilleri

“From the pit of his stomach a violent spasm of nausea rose up and seized his throat. He ran to the bathroom,…

— Andrea Camilleri

“He also remembered a comedy he had read in his youth called “The Deluge”, which claimed the next great flood would be…

— Andrea Camilleri

“And, pointing a trembling finger at Bonetti-Alderighi, with an expression of indignation and a quasi-castrato voice, he launched into the climax: Ah,…

— Andrea Camilleri

Nowadays, if a man living in a civilized country (ha!) hears cannon blasts in his sleep, he will, of course, mistake them…

— Andrea Camilleri

“No matter what they do, our elected representatives don’t give a fuck anymore about public opinion! They take drugs, frequent whores, rob,…

— Andrea Camilleri

“Giulio was against our meeting. He didn't want me getting mixed up in things that, in his opinion, were no concern of…

— Andrea Camilleri

Montalbano felt moved. This was real friendship, Sicilian friendship, the kind based on intuition, on what was left unsaid. With a true…

— Andrea Camilleri

“To distract himself, he formulated a proposition. A philosophical proposition? Maybe, but tending towards "weak thought"--exhausted thought, in fact. He even gave…

— Andrea Camilleri

“It meant that, today, to enter any place whatsoever – an airport, a bank, a jeweller’s or watchmaker’s shop – you had…

— Andrea Camilleri

But then why, when talking on the phone, did they quarrel, on average at least once every four sentences? Maybe, though the…

— Andrea Camilleri

“To judge from the entrance the dawn was making, it promised to be a very iffy day -- that is, blasts of…

— Andrea Camilleri