«If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is - Venice is better.» Fran Lebowitz

«Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.» Truman Capote

«The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.» Lord Byron

«This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty» Thomas Mann

«A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic» Arthur Symons

«A splendour of miscellaneous spirits» John Ruskin

«To build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius» Alexander Herzen

«The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act» Thomas Mann

«It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone» Erica Jong

«There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world» Mary Shelley

«Smile and be happy. You are in Venice.» Deborah Horne

«Venice is a sanctuary» Bob Farrington

«White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest So wonderfully built among the reeds Of the lagoon» Henry Wadsworth Longfellow