Petrarch quotes

I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, without artifice,Igotowork and earnmy living, my well- being, and my fame.What do Ineedmore? Witha goose quill and a few sheets of paper I mock the universe.

- Pietro Aretino
Quoted in  J H Plumb (ed)  The Horizon Book of the Renaissance (1961, new edn by Penguin,1982).