You may have the universe if I may have Italy - Giuseppe Verdi
Berluskoni atkal izcēlies, par zemestrīces bezpajumtniekiem izteicies: They should think of themselves as being on a "camping weekend".

Un es iedomājos, es mīlu šo zemi, tieši par visu šito, neizskaidrojamo šarma, cimperlības, pedantiskuma un vieglprātības sajaukumu

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from
his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. - Samuel Johnson

What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago. - Erica Jong

In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did they produce? The cuckoo clock. -- Orson Welles

Travelling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy. - Fanny Burney

Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life. - Anna Akhmatova

It is not impossible to govern Italians. It is merely useless. - Benito Mussolini, attrib.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from
his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. - Samuel Johnson --

By 1948, the Italians had begun to pull themselves together, demonstrating once more their astonishing ability to cope with disaster which is so perfectly balanced by their absolute inability to deal with success. - Gore Vidal, 1977

Even now I miss Italy dearly, I dream about it every night. - Eila Hiltunen, Finnish sculptress in 2000

The Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo. - Mark Twain