Quotes by Pitigrilli

The height of perfection is mediocrity.

The alcoholic retains the ability to condemn his addiction and advise those not subject to it to avoid succumbing to the liquid poison. But the cocaine addict likes proselytizing; thus, instead of constituting a tangible warning, every victim of the drug acts as a source of infection.

Nature [provides] with the excitement of the dance in the interest of the reproduction of the species.

Jealousy is a fever that arises from a stupid, baseless excitement in our unthinking brain.Jealousy is a phenomenon of auto-suggestion.The woman you love has gone to bed with X. You hate X, you hate her, and you have perpetually before your eyes the vision of your loved one and X embracing in an act that fills you with horror.But you too in your time have deceived the woman you love and have done with Y what X did in bed with woman you love.Well, what remains in your skin ,your mind of Mrs Y? Nothing whatever. No more than X left with your woman.In other words, auto suggestion. Do you want evidence of that? Well, then, if you dont know the man, you imagine him to be hateful, offensive, repulsive, and you feel that if you met him youd kill him.But, if you happen to see his photograph, you begin to realize that its possible to look at him without horror; and believe me, if you were actually introduced to him youd approach him with a cordial smile on your lips, look him in the eye without trembling and, if you have reached my degree of perfection, youd actually be capable of cheerfully patting him on the back and telling him hes a good chap.In a not too distant future, reason and education will have driven home the lesson of the futility of jealousy.

I met two or three men who were very kind to me. There was a magistrate who couldnt stand priests, and a priest who didnt have a good word to say for magistrates; and there was a landlord who let furnished rooms by the hour and spoke highly of both priests and magistrates, because both were his best clients.

We have to defend views we dont share and impose them on the public; deal with questions we dont understand and vulgarize them for the gallery. We cant have ideas of our own, we have to have those of the editor; and even the editor doesnt have the right to think with his own head, because when hes sent for by the board of directors he has to stifle his own views, if he has any, and support those of the shareholders.