1. “Behind everything we feel, there is always a sense of fear.” – Ugo Betti
2. “We know well enough when we’re being unjust and despicable. but we don’t restrain ourselves because we experience a certain pleasure, a primitive sort of satisfaction in moments like that.” – Ugo Betti
3. “Everyone has, inside himself … what shall I call it? A piece of good news! Everyone is … a very great, very important character.” – Ugo Betti
4. “When I say “I,” I mean a thing absolutely unique, not to be confused with any other.” – Ugo Betti
5. “Nature is honest, we aren’t; we embalm our dead.” – Ugo Betti
6. “This free will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It’s almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it.” – Ugo Betti
7. “There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.” – Ugo Betti
8. “We cannot bear to regard ourselves simply as playthings of blind chance, we cannot admit to feeling ourselves abandoned.” – Ugo Betti
9. “A vague uneasiness: the police. It’s like when you suddenly understand you have to undress in front of the doctor.” – Ugo Betti
10. “Is not man himself the most unsettled of all the creatures of the earth? What is this trembling sensation that is intensified with each ascending step in the natural order?” – Ugo Betti
11. “Every tiny part of us cries out against the idea of dying, and hopes to live forever.” – Ugo Betti
12. “At any given moment, I open my eyes and exist.” – Ugo Betti
13. “Each of us is the only person who can give the other what each of us wants to have: Peace.” – Ugo Betti
14. “If we have anything kind to say, any tender sentiment to express, we feel a sense of shame.” – Ugo Betti
15. “To believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair, and that there will be wonderful surprises.” – Ugo Betti
16. “There is no forgiveness in nature.” – Ugo Betti
17. “We play make believe, pretend to take ourselves and each other seriously – to love each other, hate each other – but then – it isn’t true. It isn’t true, we don’t care at all!” – Ugo Betti
18. “If it weren’t for the fact that all of us are slightly abnormal there wouldn’t be any point in giving each person a separate name.” – Ugo Betti
19. “The first temptation, upon meeting an old friend after many years, is always to – look the other way.” – Ugo Betti
20. “’Mad’ is a term we use to describe a man who is obsessed with one idea and nothing else.” – Ugo Betti
21. “Who cares about great marks left behind? We have one life… just one. Our life. We have nothing else.” – Ugo Betti
22. “Killing time is the chief end of our society.” – Ugo Betti
23. “I think the family is the place where the most ridiculous and least respectable things in the world go on.” – Ugo Betti
24. “Justice! Custodian of the world! But since the world errs, justice must be custodian of the world’s errors.” – Ugo Betti
25. “Thought itself needs words. It runs on them like a long wire. And if it loses the habit of words, little by little it becomes shapeless, somber.” – Ugo Betti
26. “Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid.” – Ugo Betti
27. “Sisterly love is, of all sentiments, the most abstract. Nature does not grant it any functions.” – Ugo Betti
28. “When you want to believe in something, you also have to believe in everything that’s necessary for believing in it.” – Ugo Betti
29. “Nobody is bound by any obligation unless it has first been freely accepted.” – Ugo Betti
30. “It so difficult to know what the people we love really need.” – Ugo Betti
31. “All of us are mad. If it weren’t for the fact that every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn’t be any point in giving each person a separate name.” – Ugo Betti
32. “The spontaneity of slaps is sincerity, whereas the ceremonial of caresses is largely convention.” – Ugo Betti
33. “When you put a man and a woman together, there are some things they simply have to do. They embrace, they warm each other. All the rest is dead and empty.” – Ugo Betti