"A problem has arisen. Although I handed in my army rations to the cook, with the intention of living on these, nobody has taken me seriously, nor believed that any human being in his right mind and able to eat pasta would refrain from doing so."

“A year ago we liberated them from the Fascist Monster, and they still sit doing their best to smile politely at us, as hungry as ever, more disease-ridden than ever before, in the ruins of their beautiful city where law and order have ceased to exist. And what is the prize that is to be eventually won? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Benito Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared with this.”

“He proved to be one of the four thousand lawyers of Naples, ninety per cent of whom – surplus to the needs of the courts – had never practised, and who for the most part lived in extreme penury.”

“In this country there are fifty lawyers to every one policeman, and the lawyers expect to win.”

“The facts are, as every Italian will admit, that the South is virtually a colony of the industrialised North.”

“Naples is extraordinary in every way.”

“This was the greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood.”