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I know from the stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents the real struggles and discrimination that Italian Americans faced when they first immigrated to America.

Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.

Italians know about human nature - they understand human nature perhaps better than anyone else does. They know that people are weak and greedy and lazy and dishonest and they just try to make the best of it; to work around it.

I have been further enlightened by the conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whom I would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger.

Yes, young men, Italy owes to you an undertaking which has merited the applause of the universe. You have conquered and you will conquer still, because you are prepared for the tactics that decide the fate of battles.

Italy remained attached to conservatism. It had a political class that lived in the past and didn't build the future. The past is our strength, but it risks becoming our ruin if we walk with our heads turned backwards.

If you stop for lunch elsewhere in the world, you tend to eat a sandwich, and a bad one. Italy is unique for the style of life. I think everyone envies it a bit.

Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land.

Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line, heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948.

The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand.