I've always disliked kamikazes, that is, people who commit suicide in order to kill others. Starting with the Japanese ones from World War II. I never considered them Pietro Miccas who torch the powder and go up with the citadel in order to block the arrival of the enemy troops at Torino. I never considered them soldiers.
War is something Arafat sends others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation.
You cannot govern, you cannot administrate, with an ignoramus.
To speak of oneself means to lay bare one's own soul, expose it like a body to the sun. To lay bare one's own soul is not at all like taking off one's brassiere on a crowded beach!
You cannot work and be at home with your child. But you want both.
The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period.
Without Khomeini, we would not be where we are. What a pity that, when pregnant with him, his mother did not choose to have an abortion.
Europe is no longer Europe, it is Eurabia, a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense.
This Islam business kidnapped me.
You cannot survive if you do not know the past.
It must be terribly lonely to be a king instead of a man.
Physical courage is a great test.
The larger truth, the universal truth that you can give in a novel, is far greater than what you can give through journalism.
Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king - a real leader.
A civilization, a culture, cannot survive without passion, cannot be saved without passion.
America's vulnerability comes precisely from its strength, its wealth, its power and its modernity. It's the usual story of the dog chasing its own tail.
Glory is a heavy burden, a murdering poison, and to bear it is an art. And to have that art is rare.
I am disgusted by the anti-Semitism of many Italians, of many Europeans.
My soldier weapon is the weapon of truth.
We are an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century.
I know I am a writer; it is the only thing I am sure of.
Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon.
I didn't want to kill a man. I'm not capable of killing a man. I wanted to kill a tyrant.
We must take positions. Our weakness in the West is born of the fact of so-called 'objectivity.' Objectivity does not exist - it cannot exist!... The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No, sir: Sometimes truth stays on one side only.
I am known for a life spent in the struggle for freedom, and freedom includes the freedom of religion.
I don't want to hear about my death.
Why do the people humiliate themselves by voting? I didn't vote because I have dignity. If I had closed my nose and voted for one of them, I would spit on my own face.
In my old age, I have been thinking about this, and I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage.
I love soldiers. They are my kids, they are my children.
It is the mainspring of life, courage. And courage has many faces.
I no longer have the energy to get really angry, like I used to.
Heroes can be sweet.
Arafat contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is.
The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.
I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. There must be some human truth that is beyond religion.
Have you ever thought that war is a madhouse and that everyone in the war is a patient?
I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger.
I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
I have never met a man more shy than Clark Gable. He was so shy, you couldn't make him talk.
I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.
The more democratic and open a society is, the more it's exposed to terrorism. The more a country is free, not governed by a police regime, the more it risks hijackings or massacres like the ones that took place for many years in Italy and Germany and other parts of Europe.
I am a danger to myself if I get angry.
Wojtyla was a warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America.
I defend Israel's right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time.
I must admit that I am not generous with weak people. It's not in my nature or in my personality. My parents were not generous with weak people, see?
I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test.
I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe, Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism.
I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism.
The most humiliating thing a woman can be is a coquette.
