“His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I’ve always liked it about the Greeks that they kept the violence off the stage.”
“Helmut thought himself above common morality. Or perhaps he thought he’d managed to create his own, different from ours, better.”
“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”
“when children loved you, you knew everything, and when they were angry with you, you knew nothing?”
“the warmth and smell he associated with”
“His clothing marked him as Italian. The cadence of his speech announced that he was Venetian. His eyes were all policeman.”
“In the morning a new man was behind the front desk. "And how did you enjoy your stay, Sir?" he asked smoothly.
"It was singularly execrable," I replied.
"Oh, excellent," he purred, taking my card
"In fact, I would go so far as to say that the principal value of a stay in this establishment is that it is bound to make all subsequent service-related experiences seem, in comparison, refreshing."
He made a deeply appreciative expression as if to say, "Praise indeed," and presnted my bill for signature. "Well, we hope you'll come again."
"I would sooner have bowel surgery in the woods with a a stick."
His expression wavered, then held there for a long moment. "Excellent," he said again, but without a great show of conviction.”
“You want me to spy on a National Colour operative?'
'Wow,' she said, 'you got it. I thought I was going to have to explain that one for a lot longer.”
“Freedom is a responsibility to be earned, not a license for recklessness and anarchy. If someday, despite our strongest efforts and our deepest determination, we finally fall, let it be because our enemies finally beat us, not because we beat ourselves.”
“The best way to get even with anyone is to put them in the rearview mirror on your way to something better.”
“To be well in your mind you have first to be free.”
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