Tim Parks

“It was to be, and still is, an absolute staple of the Italian railways, whether public or private, that in some way…

— Tim Parks

“A big gloomy space was piled with bags, boxes, suitcases, parcels, umbrellas. There were a few shelves but no apparent order. Some…

— Tim Parks

“Government and unions have negotiated a minimum service to be maintained during strikes.”

— Tim Parks

“And when Deirdre Bair went to interview Beckett for the biography the first thing he said was, ‘So you’ve come to demonstrate…

— Tim Parks

“It makes the nation possible and allows it to remain fragmented, allows people to live double lives.”

— Tim Parks

“Your ticket says via Pordenone,” he told me. “Don’t you read your documento di viaggio?” I was fascinated. What kind of man…

— Tim Parks

Italy is not a country for beginners.

— Tim Parks

“In America the lack of investment in train travel speaks eloquently of a country always ready to appear righteous but pathologically averse…

— Tim Parks

“It took Descartes to deduce that God would not wish to deceive us. The world must be as it appears to be,…

— Tim Parks

“Once, when the minibar boy saw me promptly dump my receipt in the ashtray, he warned me that I was legally obliged…

— Tim Parks

“[T]hese three days of meditation have revealed to me that every thought I think is, in one way or another, an ugly,…

— Tim Parks

“All writing is a sin against speechlessness,’ Beckett had said. He would have stopped, I thought, if he could.”

— Tim Parks

“it was through constructing a network of railways across some of Europe’s most arduous terrain that the newly formed Italian nation won…

— Tim Parks

“Prepare for surprises in the second part, where everything changes so that much can remain the same.”

— Tim Parks

“However reluctant Italians are to embrace a multiracial society, the old antipathy to government and authority works in favor of the illegal…

— Tim Parks

Any time one seeks to produce for a larger public one inevitably has to drop material that would only be understood by…

— Tim Parks

“The fact is, as soon as you start with words you’re locked into a debate, forced to take a position with respect…

— Tim Parks

Always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed ...…

— Tim Parks

“In every aspect of Italian life, one of the key characteristics to get to grips with is that this is a nation…

— Tim Parks

More and more the writer is aware of an international community of readers for whom dense language use and frequent local references…

— Tim Parks

“Whenever, in a democracy, we see our rulers obsessed with “the technical aspects” of the electoral process, whenever we see them tinkering…

— Tim Parks

If you want to appeal to people of different languages and cultures, you have to move toward tropes that are universally recognized.…

— Tim Parks

“There are people who want to be on their own, to mark out their own territory and be quiet there, and there…

— Tim Parks

With books at least, the best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for, but when something quite different…

— Tim Parks

“So we had the classic Italian compromise, a theater of strife when all was actually agreed. Anarchy is rare in Italy, but…

— Tim Parks