"{...} We don't just want a congenial barber and a well-stocked news-stand. We want professionally made coffee and a proper pizza. We want a couple of streets to stroll down, an avenue to jog along, a pool to swim in and a cinema for a bit of entertainment. We want a functioning courthouse, a reassuring hospital, a consoling church and an unintimidating cemetery. We want a new university and an old theatre house. We want football fields and town councillors we can pester in the bar. We want to see the mountains beyond the level crossing when the weather's good and the air is clear. We want footsteps on cobbled streets in the night, yellow lights to tinge the mist and bell towers we can recognize from a distance. We want doctors and lawyers who can translate abstract concepts into our dialect—my father can— and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone...We want all these things."
— Beppe Severgnini, The Pursuit of Italy by David Gilmour
