Top quotes by Oriana Fallaci

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. Votes: 28

Alas, nothing reveals man the way war does. Nothing so accentuates in him the beauty and ugliness, the intelligence and foolishness, the brutishness and humanity, the courage and cowardice, the enigma. Votes: 23

I am known for a life spent in the struggle for freedom, and freedom includes the freedom of religion. Votes: 18

I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test. Votes: 17

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. Votes: 16

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. Votes: 15

What are the symbols of American strength, wealth, power and modernity? Certainly not jazz and rock and roll, not chewing-gum or hamburgers, Broadway or Hollywood. It's their skyscrapers. Their Pentagon. Their science. Their technology. Votes: 15

Glory is a heavy burden, a murdering poison, and to bear it is an art. And to have that art is rare. Votes: 15

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. Votes: 15

When you have been born in a war like me, living in a war as a child, when you have been in wars as a war correspondent all your life - trust me! You develop a form of fatalism; you are always ready to die. Votes: 14

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. Votes: 14

I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe, Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism. Votes: 13

Laura Bush has the face of my mother when my mother was young. The face, the body, the voice. The first time I saw on TV Laura Bush, I got frozen because it was as if my mother was not dead. 'Oh, Mama,' I said, 'Mama.' Votes: 13

Is it right to shoot the poor prostitute or a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, or a man who loves another man? Votes: 12

I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism. Votes: 12

I have expressed my opinion through the written word through my books, that is all. Votes: 12

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. Votes: 11

The larger truth, the universal truth that you can give in a novel, is far greater than what you can give through journalism. Votes: 10

How do you dare to ask me for a solution? It's like asking Seneca for a solution. You remember what he did? He committed suicide! Votes: 10

I no longer have the energy to get really angry, like I used to. Votes: 10

Arafat contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is. Votes: 9

When my father was arrested, we didn't know where they had him. My mother found him at the house of torture. It was called Villa Triste. Votes: 8

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? Votes: 8

I defend Israel's right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. Votes: 5

We are an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century. Votes: 5

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. Votes: 3

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! Votes: 2

It is the mainspring of life, courage. And courage has many faces. Votes: 2

I don't hide. I never have. I stay at home because I like to stay at home, and at home I work. Votes: 2

You cannot work and be at home with your child. But you want both. Votes: 2

The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period. Votes: 0

I am disgusted by the anti-Semitism of many Italians, of many Europeans. Votes: 0

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." Votes: 0

Instead of learned young people we have donkeys with University degrees. Instead of future leaders we have mollusks with expensive blue jeans and phony revolutionaries with ski masks. And do you know what? Maybe this is another reason why our Moslem invaders have such an easy game." Votes: 0

I didn't want to kill a man. I'm not capable of killing a man. I wanted to kill a tyrant. Votes: 0

There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born. Votes: 0

Henry Kissinger may have wished I had presented him as a combination of Charles DeGaulle and Disraeli, but I didn't....out of respect for DeGaulle and Disraeli. I described him as a cowboy because that is how he describes himself. If I were a cowboy I would be offended. Votes: 0

I always introduce myself as an encyclopedia of defects which I do not deny. Why should I? It took me a whole life to build myself as I am. Votes: 0

Instead of learned young people we have donkeys with University degrees. Instead of future leaders we have mollusks with expensive blue jeans and phony revolutionaries with ski masks. And do you know what? Maybe this is another reason why our Moslem invaders have such an easy game. Votes: 0

I've found what I was looking for, Child: what people call love between a man and a woman is a season. And if, at its flowering, this season is a feast of greenery, at its waning, it's only a heap of rotting leaves. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

To be good or bad doesn't count: life out in this world doesn't depend on that. It depends on a relation of forces based on violence. And survival is violence. You'll wear leather shoes because someone has killed a cow and skinned it to make leather. Votes: 0

Life is such an effort, Child. It's a war that is renewed each day, and its moments of joy are brief parentheses for which you pay a cruel price. Votes: 0

Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam. And Italy is an outpost of that province, a stronghold of that colony...In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Quran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism. Votes: 0

With our progress we have destroyed our only weapon against tedium: that rare weakness we call imagination. Votes: 0

The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom. Votes: 0

I am a danger to myself if I get angry. Votes: 0

I have never met a man more shy than Clark Gable. He was so shy, you couldn't make him talk. Votes: 0

The most humiliating thing a woman can be is a coquette. Votes: 0

This Islam business kidnapped me. Votes: 0

Have you ever thought that war is a madhouse and that everyone in the war is a patient? Votes: 0

The Muslims refuse our culture and try to impose their culture on us. I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture-it is toward my values, my principles, my civilization. Votes: 0

I don't want to hear about my death. Votes: 0

It must be terribly lonely to be a king instead of a man. Votes: 0

And yet, or just for this reason, it's so fascinating to be a woman. It's an adventure that takes such courage, a challenge that's never boring. You'll have so many things to engage you if you're born a woman. To begin with, you'll have to struggle to maintain that if God exists he might even be an old woman with white hair or a beautiful girl. Then you'll have to struggle to explain that it wasn't sin that was born on the day when Eve picked an apple, what was born that day was a splendid virtue called disobedience. Votes: 0

I’ll parade with those who are alone like me. They exist. They are very few, but they exist. I’ll find them. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

There are three points of view to everything - mine, yours, and the truth. Votes: 0

[Indira Gandhi] looked tired that day, and all of a sudden I exclaimed, 'Deep down I don't envy you, and I shouldn't like to be in your place.' And she said, 'The problem is not in the problems I have, it's in the idiots around me. Democracy, you know...' I now wonder what she meant by that unfinished phrase. Votes: 0

We are an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century Votes: 0

No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it's always the strongest, the cruellest, the least generous who win. Votes: 0

You belong neither to God nor the state nor me. You belong to yourself and no one else. Votes: 0

Hearing him speak is so fun, reassuring I dare say. You can say all you like about Sihanouk: that he's an atrocious liar, a madman, a fraud, a swashbuckler, an international blot. You may think that, but you cannot deny how in this age in which the political arena seems to generate only dull, obtuse and boring characters with no imagination, he's a kind of miracle. Votes: 0

Journalism is an extraordinary and terrible privilege. Not by chance, if you are aware of it, does it consume you with a hundred feelings of inadequacy. Not by chance, when I find myself going through an event or an important encounter, does it seize me like anguish, a fear of not having enough eyes and enough ears and enough brains to look and listen and understand like a worm hidden in the wood of history. Votes: 0

Love isn’t putting chain on someone who wants to struggle and is ready to die for it, love is letting him die in the way he’s chosen. Votes: 0

I'm going to show you the real New York - witty, smart, and international - like any metropolis. Tell me this: where in Europe can you find old Hungary, old Russia, old France, old Italy? In Europe you're trying to copy America, you're almost American. But here you'll find Europeans who immigrated a hundred years ago - and we haven't spoiled them. Oh, Gio! You must see why I love New York. Because the whole world's in New York.... Votes: 0

But to deny fate is arrogance, to declare that we are the sole shapers of our existence is madness;if you deny fate life becomes the series of missed opportunities, a regret for what never was and could have been, a remorse of what was not done and could have been done, and the present is wasted, twisted into another missed oppurtunity. Votes: 0

I am angry at the Jews for many things... If you want to take the example of America, how they hold the power, the economical power in so many ways, and the press and the other kind of stuff... I never realized how it happened and they came to control the media to that point. Why? Votes: 0

America's a hard school, I know, but hard schools make excellent graduates. Votes: 0

If a man is a man and not a sheep in the flock, he has a survival instinct in him that leads him to fight even if he realizes he’s fighting in vain, even if he knows he will lose.. Votes: 0

A lot of women ask themselves why they should bring a child into the world? So that it will be hungry, so that it will be cold, so that it will be betrayed and humiliated, so that it will be slaughtered by war or disease? They reject the hope that its hunger will be satisfied, its cold warmed, that loyalty and respect will accompany it through life, that it will be a devote a life to the effort to eliminate war and disease. Votes: 0

You wear yourself out in the pursuit of wealth or love or freedom, you do everything to gain some right, and once it's gained you take no pleasure in it. Votes: 0

I'll impose upon you the same arrogance that was imposed on me, and on my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother's mother: all the way back to the first human born of another human being, whether he liked it or not. Probably, if he or she had been allowed to choose, he would have been frightened and answered: No, I don't want to be born. But no one asked their opinion, and so they were born and lived and died after giving birth to another human being who was not asked to choose, and that one did likewise, for millions of years, right down to us. Votes: 0

To have realized your dream makes you feel lost. Votes: 0

What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives. Votes: 0

True power does not need arrogance, a long beard and a barking voice. True power strangles you with silk ribbons, charm and intelligence. Votes: 0

America is God equals America equals Business equals America equals God. Votes: 0

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 phenomen. To the same degree that I do not understand power, I do understand those who oppose power, who criticize power, who contest power, especially those who rebel against power imposed by brutality. Votes: 0

You cannot govern, you cannot administrate, with an ignoramus. Votes: 0

Wojtyla was a warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America. Votes: 0

We do not understand these Americans who, like adolescents, always speak of sex, and who, like adolescents, all of a sudden have discovered that sex is good not only for procreating children. Votes: 0

I no longer have the energy to get really angry, like I used to, Votes: 0

Journalism combines adventure with culture. Votes: 0

Listening to someone talk isn't at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape. Votes: 0

I know ours is a world made by men for men, their dictatorship is so ancient it even extends to language. Votes: 0

But here's what I've learned in this war, in this country, in this city: to love the miracle of having been born. Votes: 0

Equality ... like freedom, exists only where you are now. Only as an egg in the womb are we all equal. Votes: 0

In the legends that males have invented to explain life, the first human creature is a man named Adam. Eve arrives later, to give him pleasure and cause trouble. In the paintings that adorn churches, God is an old man with a beard, never an old woman with white hair. And all the heroes are males: from Prometheus who discovered fire to Icarus who tried to fly, on down to Jesus whom they call the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, almost as though the woman giving birth to him were an incubator or a wetnurse. Votes: 0

It brought back to mind the injustice I spoke of, the solitude that oppresses women intent on defending their own destinies, their own dreams, their own mistakes. Votes: 0

Besides the things I asked [Indira Gandhi], she told me about her son Rajiv, who is married to an Italian girl and is a pilot for Air India, then of her younger son Sanjay, who is an automobile designer and still a bachelor. Votes: 0

Finally [Indira Ganhi] called a beautiful dark little boy who was playing on the lawn, and embracing him tenderly, murmured, 'This is my grandchild; this is the man I love most in the world.' It was a strange sensation to watch this very powerful woman embracing a child. Votes: 0

I met Indira Gandhi in her office in the government palace. The same office that had been her father's - large, cold and plain. She was sitting, small and slender, behind a bare desk. When I entered, she got up and came forward to give me her hand, then sat down again and cut the preliminaries short by fixing me with a gaze that meant: Go ahead with the first question, don't waste time, I really have no time to waste. Votes: 0

[Indira Gandhi] answered cautiously at first. Then she opened up like a flower and the conversation flowed along without obstacles, in mutual sympathy. Votes: 0

Sometimes I ask myself whether [Indira Gandhi] had, even then, a certain contempt for the system she represented and, years later, would overthrow. Votes: 0

I leave shreds of my soul on every experience, Votes: 0

I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger. Votes: 0

If you put a pistol against my head and ask which I think is worse, Muslims or Mexicans, I'd have to think a moment, then I'd say the Muslims because they've broken my balls. Votes: 0

Listen: if I am a painter and I do your portrait, have I or haven't I the right to paint you as I want? Votes: 0

Objectivity does not 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. Votes: 0

I don't even know if I will be around next year. My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty. Votes: 0

Physical courage is a great test. Votes: 0

Sometimes the dead are more alive than the living. And they can kill the living. Votes: 0

You cannot survive if you do not know the past. Votes: 0

One day you and I will have to have a little talk about this business called love. I still don't understand what it's all about. My guess is that it's just a gigantic hoax, invented to keep people quiet and diverted. Everyone talks about love: the priests, the advertising posters, the literati, and the politicians, those of them who make love. And in speaking of love and offering it as a panacea for every tragedy, they would and betray and kill both body and soul. Votes: 0