She took a long sigh and slowly stood up. Big and heavy, with a wide and long gray skirt with black stripes, and a dark, all-worked blouse that smell… - Antonio Delfini

Then remembering that the Viennese dancer had told me that after Modena, she would go to Bologna, and then to Ferrara, I resolved one evening to go to this city. I took the road to Finale (a bad road at the time). Near Medolla my car was stoned by a group of young fascists. Those were the times of economic sanctions, and the country fascists had tasked avant-gardists, and perhaps even balilla, with demonstrating against cars that dared to circulate anyway. These cars, according to propaganda, wasted the petrol necessary for the conquest of the Empire. I declare that I too had (for other sentimental reasons) a dislike for cars, so those stones cheered me up, and indeed inspired me with a bit of envy towards those boys: I would have liked to be one of them. Even today I would happily throw stones at cars. (From Introduction, pp. 79-80)

If it weren't for the suffering of others to make us laugh, we would never laugh.

We want to change the world, or change its place. (From Notes of a Stranger, Marka, 1990)