At La Scala it is customary to take no more than twenty minutes for those little visits one pays to boxes. - Stendhal

(Center Lake Como)... and the bold promontory that separates the two branches of the lake, that of Como, so voluptuous, and that which runs towards Lecco, full of severity; a sublime and graceful aspect, which the most renowned site in the world, the Bay of Naples, equals, but does not surpass...

Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.

Jamais il ne s'était trouvé aussi près de ces terribles instruments de l'artillerie féminine.