All Donna Leon Quotes
- My father read 'The New York Times,' my mother did secretarial work, we had a dog, we had a garden, I had a brother. Brother
- And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun,… Angel
- Oh, so seldom does fate cast our enemy into our hands, to do with as we will Cast
- The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters. Austrians
- A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between… Always Passes
- I just go to lunch. And I never know when something is going into the file and something is not. File
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Bader
- I do not take any pleasure whatsoever in being a famous person. Any
- I don't go to the movies because I don't like films. Film
- I have always had a particular antagonism for the military. Antagonism
- I know you shouldn't spit in your own soup but I think most crime writing is like TV and doesn't make enormous demands on one's… Crime
- I love music. But I've never owned a TV in my adult life, and I've never lived in a place with a television. Adult
- I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline. Happen
- I never wanted to be rich or successful or famous. I just wanted to be happy and have fun. Famous
- So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that. Contemporary
- The ending is one of my blackest, utterly without hope of any sort. Any
- Venetians feel affection and loyalty to their city, rather than to the Italian state. Affection
- And I don't want to live anywhere where I am famous. It makes me very, very uncomfortable, because it conveys an advantage over people, and… Advantage
- I find the idea of vigilante justice very attractive. I like the idea that the murderer decides that this person has gone too far, and… Attractive
- Sit around the bars, talked to people, ate in the restaurants, and chatted with the old ladies on the street. Fishermen are pretty much that… Ate
- Italians know about human nature - they understand human nature perhaps better than anyone else does. They know that people are weak and greedy and… Anyone
- All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James. All
- I was at La Fenice opera house back in 1991 with friends, and we started talking about a conductor whom none of us liked. Somehow… Book
- Italians tend to be less rigidly moral and law-abiding than do Anglo-Saxons. They also have a profound suspicion of the state and most of its… Abiding
- 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,… Acquaintanceship