How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty. He knew what love was…" (2.50)
Fabrizio is a realist when it comes to love and marriage. He thinks that true passion lasts about a year before the real stuff of marriage comes out. That's when you have to spend the next thirty years living a boring, predictable love life without much fiery passion in it.
Quote #5
The secret of Tancredi's matrimonial intentions, although still embryonic until a few hours before, would certainly have been told then had it not been luckily camouflaged. (3.50)
There is a point in this book when no one really knows what Tancredi is thinking as far as marriage is concerned. He tends to keep to himself about this stuff. But that's the style with these Sicilian kids nowadays, running around and doing whatever they want. Oh well, Fabrizio accepts that this is the way things are now.
Quote #6
"[Till] I came along we'd been an unlucky lot, buried in the provinces and undistinguished, but I have the documents in order, and one day it will be known that your nephew has married the Baronessina Sedàra del Biscotto." (3.82)
Don Calogero knows that it's special for his daughter to be marrying into an aristocratic family, and that's why he makes the gesture of telling Fabrizio that his daughter actually has some noble blood in her. This information helps soothe whatever concerns Fabrizio might have had about Angelica ruining his family bloodline.