Dante Quotes

“I guess I did miss Dante-even though I tried hard to not think about him. The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.”

“I guess I didn't have it so bad.Maybe everybody didn't love me,but i wasn't one of those kids that everyone hated,either.I was good in a fight.So people left me alone.i was almost invisible.i think i liked it that way.And then Dante came along.”

“I look up at him. He is so devastatingly beautiful in the moonlight. I tell him so. He stares at me, his dark gaze unwavering. Except for my knees. It definitely wavers my knees, if that is possible. I know I wouldn’t be able to stand up if I tried. Which I’m not going to. I’m staying right here…with Dante. “Kiss me,” I whisper. “Please.” Dante is silent, his blue eyes frozen on me. And then he lowers his head and his soft lips are upon mine. And I might seriously die this time. For real.”

“I wonder if I talk like a dead man. My daughter once came home from school very excited about some lecture -this was years ago, before I died, though just right before- and she said her English teacher had talked about what the dead sound like in Dante. This funny thing about Dante's dead, which is that they know the past, and even the future, but they don't know the present. About the present they have all these questions for Dante. And that somehow is what being alive is, to be suspended in the time. She seemed to feel that really meant something. That and also that the dead know themselves better than the living do.”

“Dante Alighieri wrote his first book in the prosimetrum genre – La Vita Nuova – in 14th century Florence. Since I’m compiling this collection – my first indie publication – in Florence, just blocks from Dante’s house, and since his book involves a lost love, and ‘A New Life,’ I thought it fitting to emulate this style in my own casual, intuitive fashion. My hope is that the juxtaposition of poems, journal entries, essays and prose will create a story; a memoir in anarchistic vignettes.”

“How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?”

“I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.”

“I squint my eyes and glare at him. “I don’t have a crush on Quinn anymore.” He raises a golden eyebrow. “No?” I shake my head. “No.” “Why is that?” I stare at him long and hard, trying to decide what to say. Should I be downright, painfully honest? I’ve always found that the best way to be, so I nod. “Two words.” He waits. “Dante. Giliberti.” I hear him suck in his breath and I smile. Sometimes, honesty is refreshing and so very worth it. “Me?” He sounds so surprised, as though he doesn’t know that he is practically a living breathing Adonis. I nod. “You.” He studies me again and I fight the need to fidget as I wait for his reaction. After a minute of nerve-wracking silence, he finally answers. “So, will you keep the bracelet?” I nod. “Can I kiss you again?” I nod. So he does.”

“This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.”

“Try it again," I said. "Kiss me.""No," he said."Kis”