We thought the church had withdrawn from interfering in Italian politics... but instead there is a terrible resurgence. These are ugly signs for freedom of expression.

Although, this is often used with negative connotations, I see ideology as an inherent part of culture.

Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.

When I was a boy, unconsciously, spontaneously I learned the art of telling ironic stories.

Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible.

It is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control.

Real socialism is inside man. It wasn't born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can't say it is finished.

Our homeland is the whole world. Our law is liberty. We have but one thought, revolution in our hearts.

I felt like an extraordinary hero. I was only five or six and I had the whole of life in my hands. Even if I had been driving the carriage of the sun I could not have felt any better.

All forms of power - even based on the consensus of the democratic system - react when they are being attacked, or when those who exercise power become a target.

With comedy I can search for the profound.

Nevertheless, the mode, the justification, and all the games involved in this war were dishonest.

Even before Europe was united in an economic level or was conceived at the level of economic interests and trade, it was culture that united all the countries of Europe. The arts, literature, music are the connecting link of Europe.

We thought the church had withdrawn from interfering in Italian politics... but instead there is a terrible resurgence. These are ugly signs for freedom of expression.

Know how to live the time that is given you.

It is extremely dangerous to talk about limits or borders. It is vital, instead, that we remain completely open, that we are always involved, and that we aim to contribute personally in social events.

In a way, the American side descended to Saddam's level, which happens often in these types of circumstances. That is why the people in Iraq do not accept the current state of affairs.

A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.

Culturally, I have always been part of the proletariat. I lived side by side with the sons of glassblowers, fishermen and smugglers. The stories they told were shaper satires about the hypocrisy of authority and the middle classes, the two-facedness of teachers and lawyers and politicians. I was born politicized.

Every time you touch those who have power over the media, they seek to stop you.

For some time it's been my habit to use images when preparing a speech: rather than write it down, I illustrate it.

I am the jongleur. I leap and pirouette, and make you laugh. I make fun of those in power, and I show you how puffed up and conceited are the big shots who go around making wars in which we are the ones who get slaughtered. I reveal them for what they are. I pull out the plug, and... pssss... they deflate.

It is from him, from Beolco Ruzzante, that I've learned to free myself from conventional literary writing and to express myself with words that you can chew, with unusual sounds, with various techniques of rhythm and breathing, even with the rambling nonsense-speech of the 'grammelot.'

It's not bad at all, getting a Nobel and making so many old fossils explode with rage.

Laughter does not please the mighty.

Satire can always be found everywhere. A people without love for satire is a dead people.

We had extremely democratic town councils in medieval Italy which knew the value of working together, and every now and then, down the centuries, this spirit returns.

Blush at your faults.

It is extremely dangerous to talk about limits or borders. It is vital instead that we remain completely open that we are always involved and that we aim to contribute personally in social events.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

I remember going to church about four times a week. I liked it a lot.

You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice?

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.

I think my election is one of several indications that gay and lesbian folk are being brought more into the center of things. I'd like to think that my election signals my bringing of gay and lesbian folk into the center of the church.

So, not only am I panicking over the weekend if I need to know my lines, but also if can I get the kids to the zoo. Can I even go to church? I was asking for certain things that would allow me to plan my life a little better.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

My father started me singing in church.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church's healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That's good, it's all positive.

The intelligence investigation under the leadership of Senator Church, which I know has helped cause this investigation by you, points out that the agencies did not disclose certain facts to us and that certain plots were going on.

Yesterday I had a Shaker visitor, and today a Catholic; and the more I see and hear, the less do I care about church doctrines.

Some hypocrites and seeming mortified men, that held down their heads, were like the little images that they place in the very bowing of the vaults of churches, that look as if they held up the church, but are but puppets.

If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.

Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.

It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.

There are enormously gifted Episcopal priests around this church who are gay and lesbian, some of whom are partnered, who would make wonderful bishops and they're going to be nominated and they're going to be elected.

Nationalism - in other words, the dividing of the church into bodies - consisting of such and such a nation, is a novelty, not above three centuries old, although many dear children of God are found dwelling in it.

Both state and church have as their object actions as well as convictions, the former insofar as they are based on the relations between man and nature, the latter insofar as they are based on the relations between nature and God.