I don't always understand my characters. I write to understand them better.

There are still countries where women don't enjoy basic rights like the vote or the freedom to study or the freedom of choice in marriage. Every year there are twenty million little girls in Africa who are deprived of their sexuality through brutal genital operations. Basically, there's still much to be done.

A writer is first and foremost a witness of her time. She must tell the truth, not take a political position. But then the truth that she discovers is profoundly political.

Adults don't know how to respect and really love their young ones. Often love is confused with possession. You say this is my about your child, without taking into account that you're dealing with a real person with his/her own personality, rights, and autonomy, even when very young.

Falling in love with a story is like falling in love with a person. It tends to occupy your life, your thoughts. You can't do anything else for a long time.

A woman has to demonstrate in every moment to be thirty times better than a man, to gain trust and to be considered. So, she has to be tenacious, combattative but not aggressive, she has to love her work a lot and not let herself be discouraged by the daily discriminiation she encounters.

A winter without snow seems depressing, lacking.

The future is created through memory.

I consider myself an aware person who is sensitive to injustice.

It's easier to change a law than an age-old mentality. Deep down, many prejudices, many hostilities, many fears persist. But if we take a look at all the peoples in the world, we have to realize that the condition of women is very backward and sometimes very sad, from both the social and psychological points of view.

Friendship is a form of love. In fact, you don't know how it starts or why. It is subject to the caprices of time. It can grow or die without a reason. It can last a lifetime.

Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them.

I try to cultivate friendships, because they are great assets. And I tend to make them last over time. Nevertheless sometimes they end mysteriously and you don't really know for what reason. Just like loves.=

What strikes me most of all in Christian culture, which is supposed to be concerned with the rights of the weakest, is the lack of regard toward animals. Maybe because they're thought to be soulless.

I also really loved the sea when I was young, when I lived in Sicily, but unfortunately the sea here has been reduced to a trash dump. It's a horrible pain going to the beach you risk getting an infection or getting tar all over you.

Aging has brought me greater liberty in fiction. When I was young I was harder on myself. I wrote with an idea of absolute seriousness.

He talked and talked because he didn't know what to say.