An Italian Affair

It isn't such a bad thing to always know that someone on the other side of the world cares about you.

You can't regret a whole period in your life. . . . It's part of who you are, one of your stories.

London on your own actually seems more exotic than Egypt on a tour.

You learned that it was easy frighteningly easy to get lost in someone else's life accommodating him and stop being yourself. You learned to be wary about falling in love. And you learned that someone who loved you could stop loving you for some dark reason and even though that was bruising you were more resilient than you knew. Eventually you would get over it more or less.

English is a beautiful language, a remarkably precise language with a million words to choose from to deliver your exact shade of meaning.

Human archetypes — the worried man, the chatterbox, the laughing old woman, the conniving youth.

The fundamental condition of man is his verticality.

Naples isn't so much the southernmost city in mainland Europe as the northernmost city in Africa.

The Italians have that wonderful verb, raccontare, that means to tell a story.