Quotes from Death at La Fenice

“His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“Though everyone in the bar knew who he was, no one asked him about the death, though one old man did rustle his newspaper suggestively.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“For reasons he had never understood, she read a different newspaper each morning, spanning the political spectrum from right to left, and languages from French to English. Years ago, when he had first met her and understood her even less, he had asked about this. Her response, he came to realize only years later, made perfect sense: ‘I want to see how many different ways the same lies can be told.’ Nothing he had read in the ensuing years had come close to suggesting that her approach was wrong.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“Where does American money come from? Steel. Railways. You know how it is over there. It doesn’t matter if you murder or rob to get it. The trick is in keeping it for a hundred years, and then you’re aristocrats.’ ‘Is that so different from here?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Of course,’ Padovani explained, smiling. ‘Here we have to keep it five hundred years before we’re aristocrats. And there’s another difference. In Italy, you have to be well-dressed. In America, it’s difficult to tell which are the millionaires and which are the servants.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“I’ve always liked it about the Greeks that they kept the violence off the stage.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“Helmut thought himself above common morality. Or perhaps he thought he’d managed to create his own, different from ours, better.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“And that, Brunetti realized, was beginning to interest him a great deal, for the answer to his death must lie there, as it always did. Santore”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“when children loved you, you knew everything, and when they were angry with you, you knew nothing?”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“the warmth and smell he associated with”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

“His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.”
― Donna Leon, quote from Death at La Fenice

About the author

Popular quotes

“Evil comes in shades of gray, not black and white.”
― Dacre Stoker, quote from Dracula the Un-Dead

“That night our new husbands took us quickly. They took us calmly. They took us gently, but firmly, and without saying a word. They assumed we were the virgins the matchmakers had promised them we were and they took us with exquisite care. Now let me know if it hurts.
They took us flat on our backs on the bare floor of the Minute Motel. They took us downtown, in second-rate rooms at the Kumamoto Inn. They took us in the best hotels in San Francisco that a yellow man could set foot in at the time. The Kinokuniya Hotel. The Mikado. The Hotel Ogawa. They took us for granted and assumed we would do for them whatever it was we were told. Please turn toward the wall and drop down on your hands and knees (...)
They took us violently, with their fists, whenever we tried to resist. They took us even though we bit them. They took us even though we hit them (...).
They took us cautiously, as though they were afraid we might break. You’re so small. They took us coldly but knowledgeably — In 20 seconds you will lose all control —
and we knew there had been many others before us. They took us as we stared up blankly at the ceiling and waited for it to be over, not realizing that it would not be over for years.”
― Julie Otsuka, quote from The Buddha in the Attic

“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
― Lewis Carroll, quote from The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

“In America, applause is won only by physical exertion.”
― David McCullough, quote from The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

“Dangerous, she thought, this was so dangerous. Too many pieces of her in his hands. She had to hold something back, some part of her that would protect her against the nights she woke to find him lying awake, a faraway expression on his face. Because it would happen—no matter the passionate tenderness growing ever deeper between them, she was second best, would always be second best.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Tangle of Need

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.