Quote by Donna Leon

“I discovered right away at the airport that Italian men were way too attentive.”

— Glenda Helms

“I am getting rather astonishing in my Italian conversation. I believe I talk a mixture of Dante and the worst modern slang.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Very helpful, I must say. Look at them in the eye and shout, and they understand every word..." (Mr. Warbeck in Sienna, talking about…

— Hilary McKay

“He was so rapt in his thoughts that he did not hear anything much that Guido was saying, that lovely bubbling speech of Guido's…

— Anne Rice

“A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a…

— Samuel Johnson

“Today Alessandro had his first meeting with a Frenchman from the “conversation exchange” website. His name is Florent, and he wants to learn Italian…

— Eloisa James

“In that moment the world tilted, and I completely lost control of my sex organs. Apparently my vagina, uterus, and ovaries were Italian and,…

— Penny Reid

There was something of the schoolteacher about Fabio Capello, which made him difficult to warm to, let alone talk to. He was a real…

— Jimmy Bullard

“Then, I will be a real Italian girl, instead of a total American who still can't hear someone across the street to his friend…

— Elizabeth Gilbert

“He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confined in their brains and spill out into the world to…

— Susanna Clarke

“Though her grasp of English was modest and his Italian non-existent, their rapport was at once intuitive and intimate, founded more on physical attraction…

— Robert Radcliffe

“demand absolute cooperation and attention.” Roughly two-thirds of the guests looked frightened, but a scattered third looked both frightened and puzzled. These were the…

— Ann Patchett