In closer possession of religious truths than the Pope himself

The reference to the Holy Father was not, actually, very opportune: Carolina was one of those Catholics who consider themselves to be in closer possession of religious truths than the Pope himself; and a few moderate declarations of Pius X, the abolition of some secondary feast days in particular, had already exasperated her."This Pope would do better to mind his own business." Then she began to wonder if she hand't gone too far, crossed herself and muttered a Gloria Patri. 

G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (1958), tr. A. Colquhon (1961), 176

A man of forty-five can consider himself still young till the moment comes when he realises that he has children old enough to fall in love

A man of forty-five can consider himself still young till the moment comes when he realises that he has children old enough to fall in love. The Prince felt old age come over him in one blow

G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (1958), tr. A. Colquhon (1961), 47

For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilisations

We Sicilians have become accustomed, by long, a very long hegemony of rulers who were not of our religion and did not speak our language, to split hairs. If we had not done so we’d never have coped with the Byzantine tax gatherers, with Berber Emirs, with Spanish Viceroys. Now the bent is endemic, we’re made like that. I said ‘support’, I did not say ‘participate’. 

... 

In Sicily it doesn‘t matter about doing things well or badly; the sin which we Sicilians never forgive is simply that of ‘doing’ at all. We are old, Chevalley, very old. For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilisations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call own own. We’re as white as you are, Chevalley, and as the queen of England; and yet for two thousand five hundred years we’ve been a colony. I don’t say that in complaint; it’s our fault. But even so we’re worn our and exhausted.’

G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (1958), tr. A. Colquhon (1961),122

One had to read the books of second-rate novelists to have an authentic picture of an epoch

Elsewhere he (Lampedusa) argued that history could not be understood properly without a knowledge of literature, especially minor literature. To find out what shopkeepers and railway workers were thinking in the 1920s, he remarked, there was not point reading the works of Giovanni Gentile. One had to read the books of second-rate novelists to have an authentic picture of an epoch, and although this might require patience, a strong stomach and a dose of bad taste, it was worth it. 'Ungrammatical, illogical, hysterical, ignorant, fatuous, "snobbish", in short pitiful as they are, they give us the true portrait of Demos, our lord and master. One has to read them.

D. Gilmour, The last leopard (1988, revised edition 2007), 46