Indro Montanelli Quotes

In Italy there is a fringe of imbeciles who believe they can resurrect communism. To bury the corpse of Marxism is not easy, because for many people that would mean denying the whole of existence. Of course Bertinotti is not one of those: he knows nothing about Marxism, he doesn't care, he is a little clown, an Italian-style populist who stirs masses of poor devils in the streets and still speaks of the working masses that only he sees.

This isn't the Right, this is the billy-club. Italians don't know how to go Right without ending up in the billy-club.

Depression is a democratic sickness: it afflicts everyone.

Storia d'Italia, volume l'Italia degli anni di fango.

I do not want to suffer, I do not have a christian concept of suffering. They tell us that suffering elevates the spirit; no suffering is something that hurts and that's all, it elevates nothing. And therefore I fear suffering. Because with regards to death, I, who in everything believe to be moderate, am absolutely radical. If we have a right to life, we have also a right to death. It rests on us, and it must be recognized the right to choose the when and the how of our own death.

Men do not know how to appreciate or measure luck except that of others. Their own never.

No, Travaglio kills no one. With a knife. He uses a weapon much more refined and unendictable in court: the archive.

Certainly, for a newspaper director, to have within arm's reach a Travaglio, about whom every starring actor, supporting cast and extra of Italian political life he is ready upon cold request to provide an inquiry brief refined in the most minute details is a nice comfort. But also a bit unsettling. The day I asked him if in that archive, into which no one is allowed to stick their nose, there were a brief with my name on it, Marco changed the subject.

When a nice quote comes to mind, I always attribute it to Montesquieu, or to La Rochefoucauld. They've never complained.

This isn't a romanticized biography. It's a biography period. If here and there it resembles a romantic novel, the credit is only Garibaldi's, not his portrayers.

L'elenco degli affiliati alla P2 comprende, dicono, 953 nomi, cui corrispondono i più alti gradi della politica, della magistratura, delle forze armate, della burocrazia, dell'industria, della finanza. Tutti «fratelli». È la riprova che, in questo Paese, guai ai figli unici.

A real writer [...] doesn't look up to any other writer but himself.

Il testimone, p. 386.

We Italians owe something to Elvis Presley: it's one of the rare occasions when we prefer to be Italian rather than American.

I have never dreamt of contesting the Church her right to remain faithful to herself, meaning to the commandments that come from Doctrine... but that she expects to impose these commandments upon me who do not have the good fortune of being a believer, trying to pour them into civil law in a way that they become obligatory even to us non-believers, is it right? To me it doesn't seem so.