Italian Romantic Quotes

History is not a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken, but rather, a glorious tale which I wish to be cast in.

I fell in love. It felt exactly like a fall, a head-over-heels tumble into a state of unbearable lightness. The earth tilted on its axis. I did not believe in romantic love at the time, thinking it a human construct, an invention of fourteenth century Italian poets. I was as unprepared for love as I had been for goodness and beauty. Suddenly, my heart seemed swollen, too large for my chest.

Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways - innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start her talking and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with - most people in the world, in other words - she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time she took the train. She'd get so engrossed in her thoughts at times she'd forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those war orphans in an old Italian film - like a stick with eyes. I'd love to show you a photo of her but I don't have any. She hated having her photograph taken - no desire to leave behind for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man.

Bowman was aware of some changes in his behavior patterns; it would have been absurd to expect anything else in the circumstances. He could no longer tolerate silence; except when he was sleeping, or talking over the circuit to Earth, he kept the ship's sound system running at almost painful loudness. / At first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays--especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare--or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with a little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them. / So he switched to opera--usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's Requiem Mass, which he had never heard performed on Earth. The "Dies Irae," roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more. / Thereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart. / And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years.

The man was more temperamental than she was. Not an easy feat. (Mina's view of Diego.)

Phidias and the achievements of Greek art are foreshadowed in Homer: Dante prefigures for us the passion and colour and intensity of Italian painting: the modern love of landscape dates from Rousseau, and it is in Keats that one discerns the beginning of the artistic renaissance of England. Byron was a rebel and Shelley a dreamer; but in the calmness and clearness of his vision, his perfect self-control, his unerring sense of beauty and his recognition of a separate realm for the imagination, Keats was the pure and serene artist, the forerunner of the pre-Raphaelite school, and so of the great romantic movement of which I am to speak.

Tatiana liked the notion of the dress, she liked the feeling of the cotton against her skin and the stitched roses under her fingers, but she did not like the feeling of her exploding body trapped inside the lung-squeezing material. What she enjoyed was the memory of her skinny-as-a-stick fourteen-year-old self putting on that dress for the first time and going out for a Sunday walk on Nevsky. It was for that feeling that she had put on the dress again this Sunday, the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union. On another level, on a conscious, loudly-audible-to-the-soul level, what Tatiana also loved about the dress was a small tag that said FABRIQUÉ EN FRANCE. Fabriqué en France! It was gratifying to own a piece of anything not made badly by the Soviets, but instead made well and romantically by the French; for who was more romantic than the French? The French were masters of love. All nations were different. The Russians were unparalleled in their suffering, the English in their reserve, the Americans in their love of life, the Italians in their love of Christ, and the French in their hope of love. So when they made the dress for Tatiana, they made it full of promise. They made it as if to tell her, put it on, chérie, and in this dress you, too, shall be loved as we have loved; put it on and love shall be yours. And so Tatiana never despaired in her white dress with red roses. Had the Americans made it, she would have been happy. Had the Italians made it, she would have started praying, had the British made it, she would have squared her shoulders, but because the French had made it, she never lost hope. Though at the

You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here.

like to see more of Vivian and Luca and maybe other Italian bachelors follow in Rafe’s footsteps, too. ;) I’d love to write a new romantic adventure for Rafe and Ari, too (but is that allowed for Kindle Worlds? Mm..).   Oh, and you can also write to me directly. I love hearing from readers. You can reach me via my website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or you can also email me.   A list of my works (arranged according to reading order) can be found here and you can also visit my author page on Amazon for book links.   Lastly, for updates on my newest releases and exclusive excerpts for upcoming releases, please consider signing up for my newsletter.   Thank you!

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory (The Prince) on the one hand and republicanism (Discourses on Livy) on the other. Source: Wikipedia

I call it our English Renaissance because it is indeed a sort of new birth of the spirit of man, like the great Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century, in its desire for a more gracious and comely way of life, its passion for physical beauty, its exclusive attention to form, its seeking for new subjects for poetry, new forms of art, new intellectual and imaginative enjoyments: and I call it our romantic movement because it is our most recent expression of beauty.

You said she has no travel records leaving Italy?" "Yes sir." "So there is a great possibility that she is still here in Italy, isn't?" "Yes sir." "What is 'true love' in Italian?" Secretary Wood showed surprise in his boss' peculiar question that was so not in line with their topic. "Uh...it's 'vero amore', sir." Secretary Wood answered, looking at Cullan as if he already lost his marbles. "Okay. Find my wife as soon as possible, Secretary Wood. I want my vero amore back to me." Cullan said with vindiction.

The country about here, though not romantic like Lucca, is very pretty, and our windows command sunsets and night winds. I have not stirred out yet after three weeks of it; you may suppose how reduced I must be. I could scarcely stand at one time. The active evil, however, is ended, and strength comes somehow or other. Robert has had the perfect goodness not only to nurse me, but to teach Peni, who is good too, and rides a pony just the colour of his curls, to his pure delight. Then we have books and newspapers, English and Italian — the books from Florence — so we do beautifully.

To the Greeks this problem of the conditions of poetic production, and the places occupied by either spontaneity or self-consciousness in any artistic work, had a peculiar fascination. We find it in the mysticism of Plato and in the rationalism of Aristotle. We find it later in the Italian Renaissance agitating the minds of such men as Leonardo da Vinci. Schiller tried to adjust the balance between form and feeling, and Goethe to estimate the position of self-consciousness in art. Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as ‘emotion remembered in tranquillity’ may be taken as an analysis of one of the stages through which all imaginative work has to pass; and in Keats’s longing to be ‘able to compose without this fever’ (I quote from one of his letters), his desire to substitute for poetic ardour ‘a more thoughtful and quiet power,’ we may discern the most important moment in the evolution of that artistic life. The question made an early and strange appearance in your literature too; and I need not remind you how deeply the young poets of the French romantic movement were excited and stirred by Edgar Allan Poe’s analysis of the workings of his own imagination in the creating of that supreme imaginative work which we know by the name of THE RAVEN.

Margaret’s unfocused striving and rankling frustration over family obligations found answering chords in Goethe’s Romanticism. She began, and hoped to publish, a translation of his play Torquato Tasso, based on the life of an Italian Renaissance poet whose close confidante, an unmarried, intellectually gifted princess, complains of feeling stifled in her gilded cage. Margaret was captivated as well by his novel Elective Affinities, which put into fictional play Goethe’s view, borrowed from new science, that romantic attractions resulted from unalterable chemical “affinities” and should be obeyed regardless of marital ties.

It is not that modern people are less intelligent than their grandparents: only that, being busier, they are less careful. They must learn to take short cuts, skimming through the columns of a newspaper, flicking over the pages of a book or magazine, deciding at each new paragraph or page whether to read it either attentively or cursorily, or whether to let it go unread. There is a running commentary in the mind. For example, in reading a Life of Napoleon: ‘page 9 … yes, he is still talking about Napoleon’s childhood and the romantic scenery of Corsica … something about James Boswell and Corsican independence … tradition of banditry … now back to the family origins again … wait a minute … no … his mother … more about her … yes … French Revolution … page 24, more about the French Revolution … still more … page 31, not interested … ah … Chapter 2, now he’s at the military school … I can begin here … but oughtn’t to waste time over this early part … in the artillery, was he? … but when do we get to the Italian campaign?’ And even when the reader does get to the Italian compaign and settles down comfortably to the story, he seldom reads a sentence through, word by word. Usually, he takes it in either with a single comprehensive glance as he would a stream or a field of cows that he was passing in the train, or with a series of glances, four or five words to a glance. And unless he has some special reason for studying the narrative closely, or is in an unusually industrious mood, he will not trouble about any tactical and geographical niceties of the campaign that are not presented with lively emphasis and perfect clarity. And, more serious still from the author’s point of view, he will not stop when the eye is checked by some obscurity or fancifulness of language, but will leave the point unresolved and pass on. If there are many such obstructions he will skim over them until his eye alights on a clear passage again.

It shouldn't be here. This sedge grass is decorative bullshit he imported from Northern Asia. The lab spent two years modifying it to slot into our ecosystem, all so that the mountain would literally smell of honey. Terra di latte e miele, she said, mockingly. Thank god my father went into business, not poetry. He's far too much of a romantic. I laughed, incredulous at this portrait of my stiff employer, and Aida reddened. It is romantic, if you think about it. He planted the grass for my mother. She's one of those Catholic Koreans, painfully devout. You know. The promised land, Canaan, found after forty years of wandering the desert. The land of milk and honey.

It was Lillian Bowman-now Lady Westcliff- dashing and radiant in a wine-red gown. Her fair complexion was lightly glazed with color from the southern Italian sun, and her black hair was caught fashionably at the nape of her neck with a beaded silk-cord net. Lillian was tall and slender, the kind of raffish girl one could envision as captaining her own pirate ship... a girl clearly made for dangerous and unconventional pursuits. Though not as romantically beautiful as Annabelle Hunt, Lillian possessed a striking, clean-featured appeal that proclaimed her Americanness even before one heard her distinctly New York accent. Of their circle of friends, Lillian was the one that Evie felt the least close to. Lillian did not possess Annabelle's maternal softness, or Daisy's sparkling optimism... she had always intimidated Evie with her sharp tongue and prickly impatience. However, Lillian could always be counted on in times of trouble.

A fresh, uplifting mélange of Italian bergamot, mandarin, and raspberry that comprised the opening accord filled her nostrils with the carefree scents of spring. Her imagination soared with memories. The gardens of Bellerose, picnic baskets bursting with summer fruits on sunny Mediterranean beaches, summers spent on the Riviera, yacht parties, and the casino in Monte Carlo. The plain little bottle held the essence of the happy life she had known. She inhaled again, closed her eyes, and allowed her mind to wander, to visualize the images the aroma evoked. Excitement coursed through her veins. She imagined a glamorous, luxurious lifestyle of exotic locales, mysterious lovers, sandy beaches, glittering parties, elegant gowns, and precious jewels. And amid it all, sumptuous bouquets of fabulous flowers, enchanting and romantic, intense aromas of pure, bridal white jasmine and sultry tuberose, and the heady, evocative aroma of rose. Seductive spices, clove with musk and patchouli, smoothed with sandalwood and vanilla, elegant and sensual, like a lover in the night. And finally, she realized what was missing. A strong, smooth core, a warm amber blend that would provide a deep connection to the soul. Love.

This new generation of Italian American entertainers shared Sinatra’s view of the new dance music that emerged in the 1950s. “Rock-and-roll is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear,” Sinatra told Congress in 1958. “Rock-and-roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons, and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration, and sly, lewd—in plain fact, dirty—lyrics … it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.” In response to the raw, driving sexuality of black-influenced rock, young Italian American men in New York and Philadelphia did to the new music what Sinatra and his generation had done to jazz. A style combining smooth vocal harmonies, romantic lyrics, and a stationary stage presence, doo-wop was invented in the 1940s by black youth on street corners, but it shot to the top of the pop charts in the late 1950s when Italian Americans adopted it as their own—just as most African American performers moved toward “soul music.” From 1958, when Dion (DiMucci) and the Belmonts placed several songs on the pop charts, until the “British Invasion” of 1964, Italian American doo-wop groups dominated American popular music. All wearing conservative suits and exuding a benign romanticism, the Capris, the Elegants, the Mystics, the Duprees, the Del-Satins, the Four Jays, the Essentials, Randy and the Rainbows, and Vito & the Salutations declared the arrival of Italians into American civilization. During the rise of doo-wop and Frank Rizzo, Malcolm X mocked the newly white Italians. “No Italian will ever jump up in my face and start putting bad mouth on me,” he said, “because I know his history. I tell him when you’re talking about me you’re talking about your pappy, your father. He knows his history. He knows how he got that color.” Though fewer and fewer Italian Americans know the history of which Malcolm X spoke, some have reenacted it.

A film, The Lost Continent, throws a clear light on the current myth of exoticism. It is a big documentary on 'the East', the pretext of which is some undefined ethnographic expedition, evidently false, incidentally, led by three or four Italians into the Malay archipelago. The film is euphoric, everything in it is easy, innocent. Our explorers are good fellows, who fill up their leisure time with child-like amusements: they play with their mascot, a little bear (a mascot is indispensable in all expeditions: no film about the polar region is without its tame seal, no documentary on the tropics is without its monkey), or they comically upset a dish of spaghetti on the deck. Which means that these good people, anthropologists though they are, don't bother much with historical or sociological problems. Penetrating the Orient never means more for them than a little trip in a boat, on an azure sea, in an essentially sunny country. And this same Orient which has today become the political centre of the world we see here all flattened, made smooth and gaudily coloured like an old-fashioned postcard. The device which produces irresponsibility is clear: colouring the world is always a means of denying it (and perhaps one should at this point begin an inquiry into the use of colour in the cinema). Deprived of all substance, driven back into colour, disembodied through the very glamour of the 'images', the Orient is ready for the spiriting away which the film has in store for it. What with the bear as a mascot and the droll spaghetti, our studio anthropologists will have no trouble in postulating an Orient which is exotic in form, while being in reality profoundly similar to the Occident, at least the Occident of spiritualist thought. Orientals have religions of their own? Never mind, these variations matter very little compared to the basic unity of idealism. Every rite is thus made at once specific and eternal, promoted at one stroke into a piquant spectacle and a quasi-Christian symbol. ...If we are concerned with fisherman, it is not the type of fishing which is whown; but rather, drowned in a garish sunset and eternalized, a romantic essense of the fisherman, presented not as a workman dependent by his technique and his gains on a definite society, but rather as the theme of an eternal condition, in which man is far away and exposed to the perils of the sea, and woman weeping and praying at home. The same applies to refugees, a long procession of which is shown at the beginning, coming down a mountain: to identify them is of course unnecessary: they are eternal essences of refugees, which it is in the nature of the East to produce.

He was a throwback to a lady's old romantic notion of how a man should act. [Giovanni Tempesta]

We should go,” I say. I look at Luca hopelessly. “Get home safe,” I manage, shrugging out of his jacket, which I’ve only just realized I’m still wearing, and handing it to him. He takes it and flourishes me an elaborate bow, the jacket dangling from his outstretched hand, which should look stupid, but actually feels as romantic as when he held my hands while kissing me. I know I’ve gone bright red. “Kaiindra--” Andrea begins, but Kendra’s already walking swiftly up the steps. “Text me,” she says over her shoulder. I follow her up. At the top I turn and look briefly at the parking lot. The two boys are standing there, looking up at us. Luca’s staring straight at me, and I have to look away to avoid breaking into a silly smile. Honestly, they’re so gorgeous. The kind of boys you dream of meeting if you come to Italy. Who’d have thought it? How lucky are we?

I don’t understand the Italian, but it’s obvious that they’re all fighting over him. The principessa wants Luca to have dinner here; Catia wants him to come back with us, as do all the other girls but Elisa, who wants him to carry her off in his car, treat her to a romantic dinner, and then, probably, propose. And Luca knows all of this; I glance at him, and see a complacent expression on his face as he takes his mother’s hand and kisses it, a gesture that brings more sighs from Kelly, Kendra, and Paige. Well, I’m never going to be like that with him, I promise myself. I take a step back till I’m leaning against the side of an armchair, watching the scene play out as if it had nothing to do with me. I’m never going to be part of a group of girls all vying to catch his attention, jumping up and down, practically screaming: Look at me, Luca! Look at me! The more I see that, the farther I’ll walk away from it. If Luca wants me, he’ll have to come and get me. And if he doesn’t--his oss. Brave words, I think sarcastically: even my vin santo tastes a little bitter going down, probably from the acid at the back of my throat, watching Luca flirt with the girls as he kisses them all goodbye on each cheek. Let’s see if you can stick to those brave words, Violet.

I was one to fall for strangers, to live in fiction more than reality. I had created a perfect romantic and mysterious character for me to pine over, when my very real boyfriend had proven human instead.

I didn’t even know you looked at him like that.” “Well, things feel more forbidden when you keep them secret, don’t they, Pippa?” I laugh and roll my eyes. “What other secrets do you have these days?” She leans in super close to her computer with a devious smile. “Do you have an Italian lover I should know about? Or lovers?” “What?” My cheeks flame. “There is someone!” Morgan slaps her palm on the desk. “What’s his name? Wait! Is it that Bruno guy? The one who kissed you? What aren’t you telling me?” “Settle,” I say, turning down the volume to keep her shrill voice from waking up the whole building. “Uh, Bruno’s…well…” “Yes?” She moves her hand in a small circle, urging me to continue. “There’s this other guy, he’s American. But there hasn’t--” “American?” She scrunches her nose. “We have those over here.” “Morgan!” “I’m just kidding! How cute is he?” Darren’s insane hair curls around my heart and I warm all over. “He’s really cute.” “Has he kissed you? What’s he like?” “No kissing,” I say with a shake of my head, “but he, like, saved me. I hurt my ankle and he carried me.” Her eyes widen more than I remember ever seeing them. “That’s how you met? Did you die? I would have died! That’s so romantic!” “It didn’t feel romantic at the time.

There’s nothing else inside the envelope. I turn the photo over and we read the note on the back written in small, careful handwriting. I miss you, Pipperoni. -Darren I swallow the lump in my throat and look up at Morgan. We both have tears in our eyes. “Why are you crying?” I ask, laughing. “Because this is the single most romantic thing I’ve ever heard!” she says, swiping at the corner of her eye. “How did he get your address? I thought you never exchanged info.” “We didn’t.” I sit down on my bed and invent scenarios. “Maybe Chiara really did see him. Maybe she didn’t want me to know, so this could be a surprise?” “Oh, I would die to have something this epic happen to me,” Morgan squeals. She falls onto the bed with the back of her hand against her forehead as if she’s fainted. I log into my e-mail and compose a letter to Chiara, telling her to call me right away. Then I stare at Darren’s note some more, especially the “I miss you” part. And the “Darren” part. Which is basically the whole thing. Darren misses me.

We cross a bridge, and all of us girls gasp in unison and crane our necks to the right-hand window of the car, pushing each other to get a sight of Florence by night--the dark velvety river lit up with glittering lights; narrow bridges farther down, the famous one with all the houses on it clustered tight together; a cathedral dome, terra-cotta and white, rising above the marble buildings, illuminated with soft spotlights, exactly like-- “Oh, it’s like a movie!” Paige exclaims in delight. “A Room with a View,” Kendra agrees. “I love that movie.” I do too; I think the bit where Julian Sands goes up to Helena Bonham Carter in the cornfield and kisses her is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. I’m just about to agree, when Luca says, “Oh, yes. Italy is very romantic,” so dryly that the words die on my lips. His accent’s light, his English seems very good. “Lots of corruption, lots of bribes. Very romantic.” “Well, he’s a load of fun, isn’t he?” Paige says in my ear.

Pippas,” he nearly whispers. “I tell you something that you do not know.” My heart picks up speed and I nestle deeper into the chair, waiting for his revelation. I know it’s not right to get hung up on appearance, but he’s so freaking hot. It’s hard not to get excited that he wants to spend time with me. I have no clue what it all means, but I’m going to soak it up while it lasts. Because it’s very likely it won’t ever happen again. According to Chiara, it isn’t even really happening now. Bruno strokes my cheek close to my ear with a couple of fingers, back and forth, back and forth. I’m tempted to think he might lean over and kiss me. I’d probably even let him. My body tingles at the thought. The anticipation. You know what he is, do you not? Nothing happens. His palm rests flat against my cheek, prompting me to look at him. A player. Shut up, Chiara. “Everything about you is lovely,” he says. My heart leaps, bounds, springs. Floats. Chiara has to be wrong about him. He’s kind and sweet and achingly romantic. And he thinks I’m lovely. He could have his pick of any Italian beauty he wants, and he thinks I’m lovely. Overwhelmed with the need to touch him, I reach out and trace along his sharp jawline, stopping just before his lips. I swallow hard. So does he. He clasps my hand in his and lightly kisses the tip of each finger, his eyes never breaking their gaze on mine. There’s something I’m supposed to say to him. Something in Italian. One word. My brain remembers one word. “Bellissimo.

That this is her chance, while she is unencumbered, to be young and free and wild. To have a fling with a hot Italian because she is in one of the most romantic places in the whole world, and because shouldn’t that be reason enough.

List of Elizabeth Lennox Books   The Texas Tycoon’s Temptation   The Royal Cordova Trilogy Escaping a Royal Wedding The Man’s Outrageous Demands Mistress to the Prince   The Attracelli Family Series Never Dare a Tycoon Falling For the Boss Risky Negotiations Proposal to Love Love's Not Terrifying Romantic Acquisition   The Billionaire's Terms: Prison Or Passion The Sheik's Love Child The Sheik's Unfinished Business The Greek Tycoon's Lover The Sheik's Sensuous Trap The Greek's Baby Bargain The Italian's Bedroom Deal The Billionaire's Gamble The Tycoon's Seduction Plan The Sheik's Rebellious Mistress The Sheik's Missing Bride Blackmailed by the Billionaire The Billionaire's Runaway Bride The Billionaire's Elusive Lover The Intimate, Intricate Rescue   The Sisterhood Trilogy The Sheik's Virgin Lover The Billionaire's Impulsive Lover The Russian's Tender Lover The Billionaire's Gentle Rescue   The Tycoon's Toddler Surprise The Tycoon's Tender Triumph   The Friends Forever Series The Sheik's Mysterious Mistress The Duke's Willful Wife The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange   The Sheik's Secret Twins The Russian's Furious Fiancée The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride   Love By Accident Series The Sheik's Pregnant Lover The Sheik's Furious Bride The Duke's Runaway Princess   The Russian's Pregnant Mistress   The Lovers Exchange Series The Earl's Outrageous Lover The Tycoon's Resistant Lover   The Sheik's Reluctant Lover The Spanish Tycoon's Temptress   The Berutelli Escape Resisting The Tycoon's Seduction The Billionaire’s Secretive Enchantress   The Big Apple Brotherhood The Billionaire’s Pregnant Lover The Sheik’s Rediscovered Lover The Tycoon’s Defiant Southern Belle   The Sheik’s Dangerous Lover (Novella)   The Thorpe Brothers His Captive Lover His Unexpected Lover His Secretive Lover His Challenging Lover   The Sheik’s Defiant Fiancée (Novella) The Prince’s Resistant Lover (Novella) The Tycoon’s Make-Believe Fiancée (Novella)   The Friendship Series The Billionaire’s Masquerade The Russian’s Dangerous Game The Sheik’s Beautiful Intruder   The Love and Danger Series – Romantic Mysteries Intimate Desires Intimate Caresses Intimate Secrets Intimate Whispers   The Alfieri Saga The Italian’s Passionate Return (Novella) Her Gentle Capture His Reluctant Lover Her Unexpected Admirer Her Tender Tyrant Releasing the Billionaire’s Passion (Novella) His Expectant Lover   The Sheik’s Intimate Proposition (Novella)   The Hart Sisters Trilogy The Billionaire’s Secret Marriage The Italian’s Twin Surprise The Forbidden Russian Lover   The War, Love, and Harmony Series Fighting with the Infuriating Prince (Novella) Dancing with the Dangerous Prince (Novella)

Italians and Greeks have uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents as far as the eye can see.

Cut the flesh and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ she growled in his ear. The line put him off; he was used to his ex-girlfriend yelling Italian in the heat of the moment. He lost fire and decided to change position. The girl reminded him of his ex from behind, with her hair spread like a concertinaed fan and face buried deep in the pillow, like it was his beloved Sofia that he was making love to and not this lookalike he’d picked up earlier in the night. He arranged her flowing hair and turned to the glow of lamplight illuminating a patch of the bed. Perfect, the right light and the right shadow. He looked down and smiled, ‘Sofia!’ Soon he’d be holding the girl tenderly in his arms, the moment he got his fix.

She got tipsy on pinot noir and ate too much of her pesto angel hair with blackened chicken-- now, at the door to the room, she's regretting it. She feels nauseous from the wine, and she knows her breath is bad from the garlic. Tom doesn't seem to notice; he's calm and a little giddy and keeps passing a hand over her ass, up under her dress. She wants to feel sexy; but she just can't, not with the thought of her dinner or her certainty that she has pesto in her teeth. Italian places are romantic in theory, but the pasta and the garlic and the rich sauces and filling wines are not conducive to carrying the romance past dinner.

With a sucha beautiful wifa, ow can lifea no be gooda! Huh?” ​That was the other thing. It allowed him to get away with saying things like that. Say something like that with an American accent and you’re a sexist and a misogynist. Say it with a French or an Italian accent and it’s romantic. Go figure.

...here, just as everywhere else, many men are far from skilled Latin lovers that legend would have them. ... In some ways, of course, Italian men are different and in my opinion got - and deserve - their reputation because of their extreme warmth, actively affectionate nature and sentimental romanticism, not necessarily because of their sexual bravura. ... They also appear to be less “generous” than men from some other countries. ... Italian men love being on the receiving end of oral sex but generally shy away from giving it. “Oh, there are a few older guys who like it,” says one male friend, “but most men think it’s kind of icky.

could it be that they [Italian men] care more about romance than sex, especially when they are on the receiving end? ... ...I was on the lookout for some good sex, an attitude that led colleagues with whom I then shared an office, Federico and Gerardo, to say that I was “the only maschio in the room”. Both claimed that they only care about sex and want it when they are in love.

I decided to study for one year, at least. But what if Chinese was too difficult? What if I didn't like it? I speak three other languages, including English. But they were romance languages, Spanish and French. Melodious and romantic, inspiring many sighs. To that end, I briefly considered learning Italian, like author Elizabeth Gilbert. Given my linguistic background, that would have been an easier, more attainable, task for me. Attempting to learn Chinese would be like setting out to land on the moon. Or a galaxy far, far away. I had nothing to compare it to.

Luca looks up, sees us, and stops dead. For a brief moment he stares at me, and, taken completely by surprise, without a chance to compose his usual cynical, careless expression, I can see his true emotions. He’s looking at me with so much longing in his blue eyes that if this were the end of a romantic film I would be tearing across the few feet of pier that separate us, throwing myself into his arms, knowing that they would lock tightly around me and his mouth would come down on mine. I know then that my attraction to Evan, nice, down-to-earth Evan, is nothing compared to what I feel for Luca. Evan’s come up behind us, towering over me, solid and secure. I must be the biggest idiot in the world to prefer Luca, sarcastic, shrugging, dismissive, moody Luca, to sweet, even-tempered Evan. But I can’t help it. I learn in that moment that you can be attracted to more than one boy at a time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Not if, when you look into the eyes of the boy who means the world to you, you know with absolute certainty that he’s the one. Luca is the one. And from the way he’s gazing at me, I know with equal certainty that he feels the same. That I’m the one for him, as much as he is for me.

The orchestra’s still playing a waltz, and Evan says to me: “Violet, do you want to dance?” I know he’s pitched it so Luca can hear; I see Luca’s shoulders stiffen. Because of course, I’m looking at him, not at Evan. “I’m a bit knackered from all that running around,” I lie. “Another time.” And I smile up at Evan, because he’s really nice, and because he likes me, and because I have to stop obsessing about Luca, about how much I would like it to be Luca asking me to dance… “Stu?” Andi says to him wistfully. “Just this once?” “Oh, Ev!” Stu says to his friend reproachfully. “You had to go ask a girl to dance! Now you’ve dropped me in it!” “Sorry, dude,” Evan says, not sounding remotely remorseful. “Stu,” Andi wails to her boyfriend. “It’s so romantic…” “Jeez, Andi,” Stu says, wrapping his arm around her. “You know guys only dance with chicks to get--uh, to get to know them. Once you’ve, uh, got to know them, you don’t need to dance anymore. Right, Ev?” Evan falls back, and Stu emits an “Oof” that sounds as if Evan’s smacked him on the head. “Dropped you in it right back, buddy!” Stu says cheerfully.

You don't have to do that, you know? Say all that romantic stuff," I tell him, ducking my chin down. "I get it. It's fake. Been there done that with my family, except I'm smart enough to not get caught in the 'feels' trap." He lifts my chin with his other hand. "I'm Italian. We are romantic. I simply say what I think.

The Renaissance extended the definition of la passione to an all-consuming dedication to a worthy pursuit, most often beauty in its infinite variety. Its passionate artists and artisans unleashed the greatest creative flowering the world had ever seen. A few centuries later the Romantics yearned to become impassioned and quiver with the intensity of their ardor. Jurists blamed “crimes of passion” on high-octane emotions that exploded into acts of unspeakable violence. [...] Passion—and passion alone—lifts us above the ordinary. Without passion, there would be no literature, no art, no music, no romance, perhaps none of the wonders Italians have wrought. Beyond sentiment or emotion, la passione italiana qualifies as a primal force of nature that cannot be ignored or denied. “When a passion chooses you, there’s nothing else you can do,” says a friend whose family produces wine and olive oil in Umbria. “Whatever happens in your life, that fire inside you is always burning. You need to follow it. It’s like betraying yourself if you try not to, and the price for betraying yourself is very, very high.

Italian restaurants are the stuff romantic dates are made of. Usually. If you think about it, it's a formula that works: a cozy room full of dark, earthy woods; menus that indulge with multiple courses of carbohydrates; plus servers with seductive accents who deliver the food with knowing looks. As they say, that's amore. All of these restaurants define themselves as Tuscan or Northern Italian, which means you can count on them for amazing house-made pastas along with classic meat and fish dishes.