“I was not frightened as they were, for the very violence of his threats showed how weak he was.”

“The fairy tale belongs to the poor...I know of no fairy tale which upholds the tyrant, or takes the part of the strong against the weak. A fascist fairy tale is an absurdity.”

“We were happy. I know I ought to be able to tell you about it, yet I cannot, for while a nightmare will stay with you like hunger, when you awake from a happy dream, you have no memory of it.”

“Who understands war: the solders? the homeless ones? Mussolini? Or the leaders of the English and the Americans? No, nobody understands war, they only think they do. Maybe the earth that drinks up the blood understands it and says: "How foolish is man. Of all the animals that lives upon me, he is the cleverest and the most foolish.”

“I had read history too closely, read of Caesar and the Roman Empire. I had not noticed that in the books there were white spaces between each line; the white spaces are there to remind you of the unspoken, unwritten truth. When one only reads the words and does not read what is not written in the book, then one will never learn to understand.”

“Now he understood clearly that roads do divide, at the crossroad there is a choice, and blinding oneself to it is a form of choosing, too; it is the fool's way, the coward's way.”

“What I have told you is not completely true. You should beware, for often in this story, my words will be spoken out of bitterness, out of hate. The scream of the poor is not always just; but if you do not listen to it, then you will never understand justice.”