Top 35 Paolo Giordano Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.”

— Paolo Giordano

2. “She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.”

— Paolo Giordano

3. “Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.”

— Paolo Giordano

4. “You can fall ill with just a memory.”

— Paolo Giordano

5. “Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.”

— Paolo Giordano

6. “Vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.”

— Paolo Giordano

7. “In the end it happens, in some way you couldn’t imagine before.”

— Paolo Giordano

8. “With a little effort, she could get up by herself.”

— Paolo Giordano

9. “She hadn’t chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn’t even thought about anyone else.”

— Paolo Giordano

10. “She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.”

— Paolo Giordano

11. “The scene was set. All that was required was an action, a cold start, instant and brutal as beginnings always are.”

— Paolo Giordano

12. “C’era qualcosa, che le faceva venire voglia di avvicinarsi, di sollevargli il mento e di dirgli guardami, sono qui.”

— Paolo Giordano

13. “Alleen en verloren, vlak bij elkaar, maar niet dicht genoeg om elkaar echt te raken.”

— Paolo Giordano

14. “All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don’t have to come up with anything new, there’s no point, because you’re both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it’s only at that point that you need a strategy.”

— Paolo Giordano

15. “His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.”

— Paolo Giordano

16. “In fact, they didn’t talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other’s silence.”

— Paolo Giordano

17. “They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.”

— Paolo Giordano

18. “Parlavano poco, ma trascorrevano il tempo insieme, ognuno concentrato sulla propria voragine, con l’altro che lo teneva stretto e in salvo, senza bisogno di tante parole.”

— Paolo Giordano

19. “It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.”

— Paolo Giordano

20. “All he did all afternoon was calculate again and again how many hours of study time he was losing. Thinking about it now, he felt stupid, as we all do when we remember all the time we waste wishing we were somewhere else.”

— Paolo Giordano

21. “The love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.”

— Paolo Giordano

22. “Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.”

— Paolo Giordano

23. “Separating them were two layers of brick, a few inches of plaster, and nine years of silence.”

— Paolo Giordano

24. “Mattia’s voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.”

— Paolo Giordano

25. “She couldn’t remember what they had talked about, only that she had looked at her rapt from a place just behind her eyes, a place full of jumbled thoughts that she had kept to herself even then.”

— Paolo Giordano

26. “Misschien dat de anderen van hem hielden omdat ze dachten dat hij onfeilbaar was, maar ik niet. Ik hield gewoon van hem, punt uit.”

— Paolo Giordano

27. “In the end we are almost never happy or unhappy because of what happens to us; we are one or the other depending on the humor that flows inside us.”

— Paolo Giordano

28. “Le scelte si fanno in pochi secondi e si scontano per il tempo restante.”

— Paolo Giordano

29. “Mattia dacht dat Alice en hij zo waren, twee tweelingpriemgetallen, alleen en verloren, vlak bij elkaar, maar niet dichtbij genoeg om elkaar echt te raken.”

— Paolo Giordano

30. “Le mancanze si assomigliano un po’ tutte.”

— Paolo Giordano

31. “El recuerdo de las personas que no amamos es superficial y se evapora pronto.”

— Paolo Giordano

32. “If we couldn’t see anything outside the car, if we didn’t know we were moving, there would be no way of telling whether it was the raindrops’ fault or our own.”

— Paolo Giordano

33. “The idea of being able to become so thin as to be invisible gave her a pleasant pang in the stomach.”

— Paolo Giordano

34. “Their only plans were to stay there and wait for Sunday afternoon to wear itself out all by itself and it would once again be time to do something necessary, like eating, sleeping, or starting yet another week.”

— Paolo Giordano

35. “Ze hing weer op en ging op de bank liggen. Ze dwong zichzelf haar ogen open te houden en op het gestuukte plafond te richten. Ze wilde dit moment, waarop ze voelde dat er iets nieuws gebeurde, iets veranderde zonder dat ze er greep op had, bewust meemaken. Ze wilde getuige zijn van de zoveelste kleine ramp, alle fasen ervan onthouden, maar binnen een paar minuten werd haar ademhaling regelmatiger en viel Alice in slaap.”

— Paolo Giordano